Notebook Stories

Many readers will probably be familiar with Jenni Bick Bookbinding– they sell a nice variety of journals and albums that can be personalized. Now, they have a new venture called MoleskineAndMore.com, a site offering customized stamping of Moleskine notebooks! Moleskine does quite a few customized editions, but they’re usually with large companies or institutions like [...]

Have you ever wanted to make your own hand-bound notebook but weren’t quite sure how? There are people out there who will teach you: Simple Handmade Books at Brooklyn Brainery: Inspired by our recent bookbinding class, we’ve been making lots and lots of notebooks lately. So for this month’s Sunday party, we’ll show you the [...]

The nice folks at Brandbook.de offered to send me some samples, and how could I resist? They do a wide variety of customized notebooks for various clients, but you can’t buy them in stores. Here’s a few of the recent projects they’re most proud of: The first one was made for the Art Directors Club [...]

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, [...]

Have you ever wanted a customized notebook with your own design on the cover, to give away or sell or just write lots of notes in? You can do it for less than you might think! Pinball Publishing is the Portland, Oregon-based company that makes the Doane Paper Utility notebooks. They also offer a similar [...]

Subu is another Etsy seller with some funky handmade notebooks made of recycled paper– very literally recycled, post-consumer paper, as you’ll see someone else’s printouts on the packs of some pages! It’s not for everyone, but some will enjoy the serendipitous finds and be curious about where these paper scraps came from…

Here’s something that may be of interest to those who like to make their own notebooks: downloadable PDFs you can use to print your own graph paper in a variety of designs! There are options with lines, dots, triangles, octagons, trapezoids, circles, bricks, etc. There are also papers for special purposes, such as music notation, [...]

Here’s an interesting post from Patrick Ng, contemplating all his needs for what would embody the perfect notebook. He’s actually looking into having it manufactured! I’ve spent lots of time thinking about what a perfect notebook would be. The concept has evolved over time: I used to prefer a Filofax-type binder with lots of varied [...]

Via CoolHunting, here’s a line of limited-edition notebooks that will appeal to collectors of unique art and design. They’re called Unfinished Notebooks, made by Studio Matador. They look great, but I’d have a hard time actually writing in one of these, I think– when a notebook seems too special, it can be paralyzing! Who wants [...]