Notebook Stories

The Moleskine mythology of having been the notebook used by Picasso, Hemingway, and Chatwin is, of course, not true, as the Moleskine brand didn’t exist until the late 1990s. But since the Moleskines we know today were modeled after similar notebooks used by these and many other artists and writers in the early 20th century, [...]

It’s taken me forever to get around to reviewing these notebooks, despite having basically had someone else write it for me! Below are some comments and photos from Ted, a former addict of the week: Got my order of Calepino today. Basically the french Field Notes. Right down to some of the wording on the [...]

I came across a blog post by Daryl Balcombe, who expresses that common wish for a sketchbook to be full of beautiful, finished work on every page, but acknowledges that it’s ok if it isn’t: at the end of the day a sketchbook is the right place for me to scrawl and vent my frustrations [...]

I’ve had my eye on Bound Custom Journals for a while. The company was launched in 2011 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, inspired by founder Joel Sadler’s desire for a customized travel journal. The result is pretty extraordinary: a website where you can build custom notebooks page by page, with all manner of page templates [...]

The kind folks at Miro sent me a jumbo pile of journals to review, a selection of which appear below. They have some interesting points of difference with other products out there on the market, so let’s take a look. Miro has 4 product lines– two are wire-o bound with different types of cover materials– [...]

I bookmarked a post from Bleistift several months ago because I just loved these images of a Brunnen Kompagnon notebook:   Read more about the author’s usage of the notebook and search to replace it at Brunnen Kompagnon – out with the old… » Bleistift.

I have been a passionate fan of the Tintin books ever since I was a kid. There are a few moments when notebooks make an appearance, including these: All the images above are from King Ottokar’s Sceptre.   And there’s my favorite, which is from The Red Sea Sharks: Maybe this is where my love [...]

Sandra has a great review of the Squared Moleskine notebook: Life Imitates Doodles: Bleedthrumanade in Moleskine & Review of the Moleskine Squared Notebook. She shares my concerns about the darkness of the grid lines in recent print runs of these notebooks: And as a bonus, we get to see some of her Zentangle-inspired art! Love [...]

A nice collection of Moleskines, posted on Flickr: I see sketchbooks, ruled and squared, large and small, top-opening and side-opening, which got me thinking: do most Moleskine users tend to buy mostly one kind of Moleskine over and over again, or do they have a wide variety like this? My Moleskine collection is much more [...]

Here’s a new brand of notebooks that look fantastic! Notebooks : Calepino. Designed and manufactured in France, available in lined, squared and plain. 48 pages, 90g paper, 9 x 14cm. Sold in 3-packs that come in nice little case. Each 3-pack is 9 Euros, but outside the EU you can take 19.6% off since you [...]