Here’s a funky slip-cased set of notebooks:
But it drives me crazy when online sellers don’t list measurements and just say “fits perfectly in your purse!”
Available at ModCloth for $19.99.
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The Fourth Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper at Black Belt Productivity
Head on over to Black Belt Productivity where they’ve done a great job with the latest Carnival! Thank you to the hosts and to all who submitted their wonderful posts. Here’s the schedule for upcoming editions:
Dec 08, 2009 Goldspot Pens
Jan 05, 2010 Journaling Arts
You can submit a post to the next carnival at this link. To learn more about this monthly extravaganza of notebook and pen p()rn, visit the carnival info page.
The Fourth Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper – Black Belt Productivity.
Notebook Sighting: Bored To Death
I spotted this ad for the HBO show Bored To Death, which features a notebook, probably a Moleskine.
Has anyone seen the show? Does the notebook make frequent appearances?
Moleskine Monday: More Thoughts on New Products
I’ve been mulling over the news and reactions to Moleskine’s latest product announcements. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at their product development meetings, as I think some of their decisions are a bit … odd.
I started to feel this way several months ago, when the Color-a-Month Planner and Page-a-Day style calendar were announced. The color a month planner is cool, but not executed as well as it could have been. I’m going to do a full review soon, but my main complaints are that the holder for the 12 booklets isn’t very secure and isn’t truly a “box,” and that the 12 booklets themselves have too much repetition of frontmatter. If I had designed this product, I think I would have made it some sort of outside cover with the expanding pocket and pages for holidays, time zone maps, and a full year fold-out planner, and then made it so the monthly Volant booklets could be slotted in one at a time and changed out each month. And they’d have a full 2-page per day spread, with time slots on one side and a notes page on the other.
Then there’s the latest products, the themed, pre-formatted Passions journals and the Folio-size ring binder stuff. I don’t think the Passions series will sell very well, as they’re too specific. They may be bought as gifts but I think most Moleskine users like the open-ended versatility of their notebooks– the blank-slate quality that welcomes creativity, rather than hemming it in with forms to be filled out.
As for the ring binder, this will fill a need but it looks like they’re using an odd ring format that might not be compatible with standard hole punchers. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but it could be a drawback. The ring-binder, at least, seems to be in response to interest from the Moleskine user community– in one of the Facebook user groups, or perhaps on Moleskinerie, there was a discussion thread about new products people would like to see, and something refillable was one of them. Otherwise, I think many of those ideas have been ignored by Moleskine, which is a shame. 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. Other new products I’d like to see:
–a few new colors for the hardcover notebooks, perhaps more muted than the bright Volant colors.
–Cahier-format planners and address books, to be used with the next idea below:
–some sort of cover into which 3-4 cahiers can be inserted, perhaps similar to the Kolo Essex travel book. This would allow people to mix and match a few sections so they could keep an address book and planner while swapping out a notes section as it fills up, or have lined and blank pages in one notebook, for instance.
–pre-printed numbers on the pages. Many people seem to number their pages, so I would think there’d be a market for this– maybe not a huge market, but probably no smaller than the number of people who want a pre-formatted journal for wine or books!
It will be interesting to see what Moleskine does in the future– they obviously want to grow their brand and feel that just selling more of their classic formats isn’t going to get them to their goals. But that means they have more and more products in their catalog selling fewer and fewer units each. What new notebook products would you like to see, from Moleskine or any other brand?
I Wish I Could Have Gone…
There was an auction last week for all kinds of interesting stuff including a “Large Lot of Diaries, Notebooks & Memo Pads.” I wonder who bought them!
Antiques and the Arts Auction Listing — Rare Books, Paper & Ephemera Auction Olde Tyme Stuffe, Inc. 54 Suffolk Street Worcester MA 01604 Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 6:00 pm.
Notebook Addict of the Week: Cat’s Jot Spot
“Haha I think I have a problem!” says Cat, about this:
40% off coupons at Borders are indeed dangerous!
Moleskine, Doane, and Rhodia… A little much? « Cat’s Jot Spot.
Is a Notebook One of Your 100 Things?
If you had to strip your life down to only owning 100 things, would a notebook be one of them?
If you’re reading this, I can’t imagine it wouldn’t! At mnmlist.com, Leo Baubata writes about living a minimalist life, and he lists his 100 things. The 100 count can be a bit flexible– he counts clothing articles individually except for underwear, but he doesn’t count books, household items, or shared things, for instance… but he does have a Moleskine on his list! But does he just count the one he’s currently writing in? What if he finishes it?
I like to live a fairly minimalist life in some ways myself, and the 100 things concept is appealing… but I’d so completely blow that with notebooks alone!
» 100 things | mnmlist.com.
Review & Giveaway: PSN & Flash Notebooks
Remember the tiny little notebook from this post? I contacted the company that makes it, and they were kind enough to send me some products to review– more traditionally sized ones!
Presign International is based in the Netherlands, and they make a variety of stationery products including notebooks. The samples I received are from their PSN and Flash lines of Moleskine-like notebooks. I say “Moleskine-like” because that’s become the standard, but actually, these reminded me somewhat more of the Pen & Ink Sketchbook, or in some ways, the Rhodia Webnotebook. As you can see from the photos below, these have the same 3.5 x 5.5″ format as most of the notebooks I’ve reviewed, but they’re slightly thicker than a Moleskine, similar to the Webnotebook (the orange notebook in photos below, underneath the squared Moleskine at right).
I love the colors they sent me– I know the white would probably get dirty with day to day use, but there’s still something very cool about it.
The black and white PSN notebooks have a slightly textured cover just like the Pen & Ink Sketchbook– almost identical to Moleskine or Piccadilly, but just slightly softer, somehow. The orange and blue “Flash” notebooks have a smooth, matte-textured cover– the texture is hard to describe, but it’s almost similar to a wetsuit. Inside, the PSN and Flash notebooks seem exactly the same, so I’m just showing the Flash. They have the standard features: a ribbon marker and an expanding back pocket. The inside front cover is totally blank.
The binding feels a little stiff when you open it, but both notebooks lie quite flat when opened all the way.
Instead of the typical embossed logo on the back cover, these notebooks have the branding stamped on the front. The back is totally plain. As you can see in the photo below, one of the notebooks has a contrasting color elastic cord rather than the usual flat ribbon– I quite liked this little detail, though the flat elastic might be more practical. Like the Rhodia Webnotebook, the slightly padded cover gets a little dented by the elastic.
Below is a comparison of the graph paper in the orange notebook (top) with a squared Moleskine (bottom). The PSN notebook has slightly darker, sharper lines.
In testing my usual pens, I found that the paper performed pretty well, about the same as a Moleskine, and maybe with a tiny bit more showthrough than a Piccadilly. It’s very smooth and pleasant to write on with my favorite pen, the Uniball Signo RT 0.38– I’d say it’s very comparable to Moleskine or Piccadilly or the Markings journal I was using recently and only slightly falls short of the ultimate smoothness of the Clairfontaine/Rhodia paper. The Pilot Varsity fountain pen I tried feathered very slightly.
The blue notebook has heavier weight sketch paper with a bit of texture to it– pens barely show through at all. It also seemed to work nicely with watercolors, holding up well without much buckling.
Overall, I think these notebooks are quite nice– I personally tend to prefer something that feels slightly more slim and sleek, as I mentioned when reviewing the Rhodia Webnotebook and the Pen & Ink Sketchbook. The thicker covers give a feeling of quality and permanence, but that ever so slight extra bulk can just make them feel a bit less pocketable. But if that doesn’t bother you, you’ll probably be happy with the paper and the rest of the features.
Specs:
The PSN notebooks shown here retail for around €4.95, and the Flash notebooks are €3.95. These are said to be A6 size, which is supposed to be 4.133 x 5.826″ but the actual measurements of the notebooks are approximately 3.5 x. 5.5″. Both styles are also available in other sizes.
The graph notebook has 192 pages of 80 gram paper. Lined and plain versions are also available.
The sketchbook has 80 pages of 150 gram paper.
Made in China.
For readers in the US, the biggest drawback to these notebooks is that you can’t buy them! They are available in the Netherlands and some European countries, and a few other places with Dutch ties such as Aruba. For more info and a list of retailers, please visit Presign International. But if you want one in the meantime, you can enter the GIVEAWAY!
I’ll be picking a random winner to receive the black PSN Sketchbook (heavy unlined paper). Here’s how you can enter:
- Follow me on Twitter @notebookstories AND post this message as a Twitter update: Win a cool notebook this week @notebookstories https://www.notebookstories.com
- If you have a blog, write a post linking to this review and email me your blog post URL at contest@notebookstories.com
The deadline for entry is 5pm EST on Friday October 30. I’ll announce all the winner next week. Good luck!
Moleskine Monday: A Forest
Via The Rag & Bone Blog, a lovely altered Moleskine:
His Heart, My Desire: My Spiral Notebook System
It’s always interesting to read about how others use notebooks– everyone’s system is different! Here’s someone who’s found an inexpensive method that works for her:
Searching for the perfect day planner has always been a difficult task for me. I have spent so much money on planners of every sort and size trying to find the one that would suit me and my life best. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like them, it means they just didn’t work for me. I am a full-time wife, mother and now a grandmother and I organize a Women’s Ministry at my church as well as a Bible class. I would love to share with you how I came up with a solution that has worked perfectly for me. I use the inexpensive spiral notebooks that you can find at any office supply or discount store. I have paid anywhere from ten cents to 1.00 for my spirals.
Read more at His Heart, My Desire: My Spiral Notebook System.