A really interesting look at someone’s custom designed travel journal holder, with a strap to fasten in the journal, plus pockets for favorite art supplies:
Read more at Week 6 of Designing a Creative Travel Journal | — ✄ – ✄ – the smallest forest – ✄ – ✄ —.
This week’s addict wrote a great blog post about her love for notebooks:
Notebooks make me joyously happy. I can’t walk past a stationery store without ducking in to check it out. I caress the notebooks, flip through them, smell their pages, massage the covers, and usually walk out with an aching heart unless I’ve forked out the money to take one home. I’d happily spend my days surrounded by paper, whether in blank form or printed. It’s my personal Zen….
I decided to visit my closet to have a closer look at all my old, filled notebooks from the past fifteen years of my life — ever since I started keeping a journal at age 11. This is what I found:
There are 37 notebooks there, far more than I ever imagined. Some are small, some are big, most are average, but it still adds up to one heck of a lot of words.
An excellent collection, with lots of variety! I see a Moleskine or two, and maybe an EcoSystem, but lots more I don’t recognize! And she’s another traveler who visits stationery stores…
Read more at My Notebook Addiction | Feisty Red Hair.
The lovely sample below arrived from Vienna, where Paper Republic is based. This is an example of their Noto collection, and it’s quite an international notebook: the Chiyogami paper cover is screen-painted by hand in Japan, the pages inside are made of Swedish paper, the notebook was bound in Budapest, Hungary and then was hand-numbered in Vienna.
From the company:
“Paper Republic’s mission is to craft authentic notebooks and journals according to traditional paper-making, printing and book-binding techniques.”
I love the result– it is beautiful and unique while being classic and very simple. When I opened the package, I went “oooh…” You can tell that care has gone into the binding and assembly. The quality seems very high, and everything is tight, square, and symmetrical. I like the look of the branding, and the hand-numbering is a nice touch.
The notebook is about 3 3/4 x 5 3/4″, just slightly bigger than a pocket Moleskine.
The paper inside is smooth, but with a very slight tooth to it. All my usual pens worked well, with fountain pens showing a bit more saturated color than they do on some other papers. Some of the wetter pens feathered out a little bit, but bleed-through was a bit better than average, and show-through about average.
I hope these notebooks will be making their way to some stores in the U.S. soon, but in the meantime, the Paper Republic website is offering free shipping worldwide. Other gorgeous cover designs are available, as well as a larger size. The small Noto notebooks are €14.95, which is a bit steep at the current conversion of about $19.95 USD, but for something of this quality, including shipping from Europe, it doesn’t seem outrageous. It’s nice to see a new notebook brand that pays such attention to detail and features such unusual, beautiful designs.
I forget how I came across this but it’s pretty cool. From a 2008 eBay sale– I wonder who snagged it!
Read more at Hang Fire Books: 1919 Electrical Engineer’s Notebook, Abstract Plumbing Poster and 1950s Telefilm Pressbooks.
Another nice image containing notebooks from Things Organized Neatly, this one by Andy Barron. The one in the bottom right could be a DesignY notebook. In the middel, probably a Moleskine Cahier. I’m not sure about the other notebooks, but the other funny thing I noticed about this picture is that I have the same USB drive and white ink pen!
Things Organized Neatly: SUBMISSION:Â Brooke Fraser by Andy Barron..
Moleskine’s got a new look, at least for their website and ads. I wonder if they’ll start to use this new concept on the notebooks themselves, or their packaging?
Over the past few years, the company has diversified into areas such as apps and print-on-demand services – and a new identity for the brand created by Milan-based agency Achilli Ghizzardi Associati is built around the concepts of flexibility, organisation and an open space for creative ideas to flourish.
What this translates into in real terms is a monogram of a three-x-three grid of squares featuring the curved corners that have been a notable part of the design of Moleskine’s notebooks. The top-left square is replaced by a capital M from Moleskine’s logo, which has been tweaked from the Copperplate original to create an original face.
Read more at Inside Moleskine’s identity redesign by Achilli Ghizzardi Associati – News – Digital Arts.
This week’s addict blogs at I Still Write about some of our favorite things : letters, postcards, pens and notebooks! He started the blog to teach his kids about the fast-disappearing world of snail mail, and how cool it is to write and receive good old-fashioned paper correspondence to and from places around the world.
Derrick accumulated quite a collection of Field Notes:
But he probably doesn’t have all of these anymore, as he offered them as prizes in a drawing people entered by sending him postcards, some of which are displayed on his blog too. What a great idea.
Read more at i Still write: Ooo. Ooo.. Ooo.. SHOW and Tell time.., and if you’re so inclined, send Derrick a postcard! (I can’t promise he’ll be giving away any more notebooks, but he does say he’ll write back!)
The folks at Kapdaa contacted me from India to offer a sample of a very cool concept: notebooks covered in leftover fabrics from clothing. An offcut is the material that remains after the clothing pattern has been cut out. Often it just goes to waste, but Kapdaa uses these remnants to make attractive cloth-bound journals (as well as other product like iPad sleeves and bookmarks). They have 3 lines, all hand-bound in India:
– Formal offcuts (such as Pinstripe suits offcuts);
– Casual offcuts (including Casual shirt offcuts); and
– Indian offcuts (Bright cheerful colour offcuts).
I received a 4×6″ lined journal. It’s covered in a dark navy pinstripe fabric with a pleasantly soft feel. The binding is nicely done, with tight squared corners and everything precisely aligned. I personally prefer rounded corners and less cover overhang, but others will like this just fine! 
The endpapers are black, with some information about the company. I love the way black endpapers look, even if they aren’t very practical for being able to write your name! There is no ribbon marker, pocket, or elastic closure.
The binding opens completely flat. The ruled lines are a medium grey, with a bit of extra space at the top. The paper feels very smooth. The cream color is just slightly cooler than the paper in Moleskine notebooks.
All my usual pens worked well, with fountain pen ink looking a little lighter in color than in does on some paper. Show-through was average, and there was no bleed-through except with the Accu-liner and Super Sharpie.
The company is still just getting off the ground, so there’s no retailers or pricing information yet, but you can follow their Facebook page for the latest news. If this early sample is any indication, I think they’ll be a nice addition to the many notebook brands in the market.
Our extended family of notebook fans are always passionately searching for the perfect notebook. I’m often stumped by the questions I receive, so once again, I’m crowd-sourcing the research!
From Q:
Hi, I was wondering if you know of any places selling clear plastic covers for Moleskine Cahier or Volant pocket-sized notebooks? I have a passport cover that will just fit the width, but the height is about 10mm taller than a passport, so the ends stick out.
I have seen places selling artsy covers for Cahiers, but I am looking for a clear one.
Tom asks:
Forty or fifty years ago, whenever I went into a five-and-dime or drugstore, there was a stationery department. In this department there were always the little 6-ring pocket size notebooks. Actually, they usually were in two sizes: those that took 3â€x5†pages, and those that took 4â€x6â€. But there was another variation. Some had the rings on the long side of the notebook, and some had the rings on the short side (the top). Now I am lefthanded, so writing in a small notebook with rings on the left is very difficult, so I always preferred the top-bound small notebook. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the top-bound 6-ring 3â€x5†notebooks for at least thirty years, although the side-bound variety is still common. Nowadays, I am forced to use a spiral-bound (top-bound) pocket notebook, which is only marginally satisfactory for my purposes. My question is, do you know of any vendor anywhere in the world that still sells a notebook of the type I desire?
From James:
I’ve been reading Philip Hensher’s book The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting
. In the last chapter he alludes to a shop in Geneva that stocks his favourite notebooks but – provocatively – declines to mention the name because he claims the staff are so “up-themselves”. Here’s the footnote quote in full:
“I have a succession of notebooks, each about the size of my palm, bound in bright leather so you can’t mislay them about the house, with the perfect addition of an elastic cloth strap to stop the pages from flapping open and, more usefully, allowing you to keep your pen and notebook together and not to have to go delving into your man-bag saying that you could have sworn you had a pen with you. The notebooks are Swedish in manufacturer, and I would tell you where I get them, but the shop in Geneva is staffed by such up-themselves shop assistants that I really don’t think I want to put any more custom their way. Still, their notebooks are gorgeous, well worth it if you find the shop through your own initiative” (page 255)
Well, my initiative is to contact you! Might make an interesting blog post. If you know the answers (shop & notebook) please let me know!
The store could be Brachard, which I only know of via this post at Palimpsest, but no Swedish brands are mentioned. Rationella and Ordning and Reda are two Swedish brands I’ve heard of. A Rationella notebook is featured in this post.
Pauline is looking to purchase or trade for some limited-edition Field Notes. If you have them, email me and I’ll put you in touch with her:
I am desperately seeking the following and have had no luck whatsoever. I seek a Fab.com set, a Tattly Hustle set and one sketchXchange notebook.
From Thomas:
I am looking for a sketchbook (no lines, dots, or grids) with the pages made from vellum.
From Jane:
Do you know of another notebook that is the same size and thickness of a Moleskine Volant Extra Small, but that doesn’t have perforated pages? I don’t mind if it’s a little thicker, but I know the Moleskine Volant Extra Small is hardback and too thick/clunky in my pocket.
The Moleskine Volant isn’t actually hardback, so I think she means the extra-small hardcover Moleskine notebooks, which do not have perforated pages. I believe Writersblok had some small notebooks similar to the softcover Volants, but they might have had perforations too. Clairefontaine has some smaller sized staple-bound notebooks that I don’t think have perforations.
From Levi:
I’m working doing some research for a feature film that takes place San Francisco in the starting in 1958 and spans 10 years. One of our characters is a reporter and we would like to have the perfect looking notebooks for him. we should be able to source or replicate the books but I am wondering if you could give us a suggestion as to what the perfect notebooks (he might have different ones throughout the film) would look like. (a photo would be amazing, a brand would also be a great help.)
I was born in 1968, so I only know what I’ve seen in movies and photos, and I think reporters seemed to have pads that were spiral-bound at the top. But I’ll bet some other readers might have more suggestions.
If you can help with any of these questions, please comment! Thanks as always.
The blogger at Palimpsest does us all a great service with a fantastic series of posts about favorite stationery shops around the world, mostly in Europe. Each is well-documented with photos:
I love visiting stationery shops when I travel. Even though the major brands like Moleskine and Clairefontaine are globally ubiquitous, there are always some local gems that you won’t see just anywhere. I’d love to compile a list of the best places to buy notebooks in countries around the world– please share your favorites in the comments!
