Here’s something actually kind of interesting for a change! The late, great Moleskinerie website has been dormant since 2016, but its Japanese counterpart, Moleskinerie.jp, is still quite active. I noticed this recent article about new products being introduced at a Moleskine pop-up shop at Shibuya Loft.
Moleskine Expanded Notebook
Most exciting to me was the 400 page “expanded” notebook, a concept I suggested on this site back in 2009:
One idea I think would be a slam dunk is a chunkier, double-thickness Moleskine. It might not be as pocketable, but it would look great, and feel great, and serve a useful purpose for people who go through notebooks fast. It would be cool if they did it with multiple ribbons, as the City notebooks have.
(I’m sure I’m not the only one who had this idea!) Although I don’t think I’ve seen any official announcement of these expanded notebooks from Moleskine, they are showing that they’ll be available in February 2019 on Amazon, in plain, ruled, square and dotted formats, in both hard and soft covers, but unfortunately only in the large size. They have two ribbon markers.
Moleskine Classic Notebook Medium Size
They also added a medium size to the classic notebook line, the 180 × 115 mm format used in the Voyageur notebook, which I think is a nice size (see my review of the Moleskine Voyageur). This format has also been used in their Two-Go notebooks. These notebooks are also showing up on Amazon with February 2019 availability. They seem to be in hardcover only, in black, red and blue, with options for plain, ruled, squared and dotted paper. A sketchbook option in this size would be cool.
Moleskine Art Collection Bullet Notebook
And then I guess they realized they’d better jump on the BuJo bandwagon, so they are offering a Bullet Notebook, which seems to have numbered dot-grid pages with heavier 120GSM paper (which is unlikely to be truly fountain pen friendly), as well as some index pages. I’m not sure why this is any more bullet-journal-y than any other notebook, really. Maybe they should have just called it “Moleskine Leuchtturm-ish Notebook!” I couldn’t find this product on Amazon or in Moleskine’s latest catalog, so I wonder if it was created just for the Japanese market, or perhaps isn’t coming to the US until the Fall of 2019.
Other New Moleskine Products for Spring 2019
While looking through the Spring 2019 catalog, I noticed a few other items of interest, hidden amongst the plethora of limited editions and other sundry items. The portrait format Watercolor Notebook line (as opposed to the landscape format Watercolor Albums) now includes a pocket size. A4 and A3 portrait format watercolor notebooks are also new this spring.
The softcover landscape format Sketch Album line has also been expanded to include versions with brown kraft paper covers. All the Sketch Albums have 120 GSM paper, not the heavier 165 GSM paper found in the portrait format sketchbooks.
Then there is a whole new product called the “Sketch Pad,” launched in 5 sizes. The catalog didn’t have any photos, and at first I wasn’t quite sure how it was different from the Sketch Album, but on Amazon, you can see more images. It seems to have a flexible front cover you can fold back, but a rigid back cover, and all the pages are detachable (it looks like a glued binding, rather than a perforated edge). The paper is 120 GSM.
The only other thing that jumped out at me isn’t new for Spring 2019, but it must be fairly recent– the “Denim Collection” now just has plain denim covered notebooks in two shades of blue.
Not sure how I missed this, but they look perfectly nice, unlike this earlier iteration:
I guess I was so traumatized by those stupid slogans that I’d since averted my eyes to anything that said “Moleskine” and “Denim!”
It’s always interesting to see what Moleskine is up to: even though I am unlikely to buy these new Moleskine products, I am always hoping that they’ll address their quality issues and maybe bring me back to the fold. You can look at the Spring 2019 Moleskine catalog yourself at this link on the Chronicle Books website. Let me know what you think: hot or not?
See more at: Moleskinerie | Moles Quinery
I’m glad you suggested the expanded version, I like the thickness of the page per day planner but just wanted lines. I’ll be buying one now as I need a book which holds loads of information that I’ll add to over time. Great idea, thanks!
I’m sure Moleskine do listen to suggestions, and when they say they’ll pass the suggestion on they really do. At one time I suggested the alternate plain and lined pages and this came out in the “Two Go” notebooks. The heavier paper wasn’t what I had in mind but they did it. I bought a Voyageur notebook as a travel journal when they came out and used all the lined pages but none of the others! I suggested to Moleskine that it would be really nice, rather than having all the different papers, to have a notebook the same size, but with just lined paper. Again they said they’d pass it on and now I have two medium size notebooks on the way!