Notebook Stories

Suw Charman-Anderson has an interesting article at Forbes.com about the best ways to use a notebook for creative endeavors. She refers to another series of blog posts called The Entrepreneur’s Notebook, which brings up a controversial approach: I’ve always used my notebooks for everything, whether that was notes from a meeting I was in, to [...]

Brain Pickings offers a nice look inside a new book from Moleskine: The Detour Book, which I’m sure I’ll soon add to my ever-growing collection of books about notebooks and sketchbooks!   Read more at Moleskine Detour: Inside the Notebooks of Beloved Creative Icons | Brain Pickings.

This week’s addict is a bit different, as I picked her because of the way she is addicted to other people’s notebooks, not just her own. Amy Ludwig Vanderwater blogs at Sharing Our Notebooks, which “highlights pages from a variety of notebooks: paper, digital, napkin, any kind [so readers can] learn how students, authors, artists, [...]

I love these scanned notebook pages containing the creativity manifesto of Frederick Terral. (Hard to say what brand of notebook it is, but I’m guessing it could be a Piccadilly):   Good advice! Read more about other inspiring messages and manifestos for creative people at Five Manifestos for the Creative Life | Brain Pickings.

We live in a digital age, yet sales of good old fashioned paper are way up. Why? An article in the Guardian provides quite a good answer: We all love stationery (some more moderately and tastefully than others). But why? It seems to me to offer two great and seductive promises. The first is that [...]

Gerard is a curator and arts educator who emailed me some great photos of his “Idea Books,” which he’s filled nearly 40 of over the years: I love the idea of having notebooks dedicated solely to ideas and creativity. And you know how I can tell Gerard is an extremely creative guy? Look at the [...]

A couple of years ago, there was a great post on Design Observer about Michael Bierut’s notebooks: The post made its way around the blogosphere so extensively that I never bothered to link to it here. But more recently, a reader asked me if I had seen it, and it got me thinking again about [...]

I love this concept, and wish I had heard about it before now, as it occurs in April each year: International Fake Journal Month. Here’s the creator’s explanation: What Is International Fake Journal Month? Basically it’s a free pass to put anything in a journal that you might not otherwise put in. At least that’s [...]

I love this sketchbook cover: From accidental mysteries: John Hendrix Sketchbook Cover.

I’m sure many of us notebook freaks have often imagined creating the perfect notebook– something that would take elements of notebooks you like and combine them, or somehow correct flaws, or else customize a notebook that is perfect for your exact needs. Here’s an interesting series of posts from a designer who did just that, [...]