I really enjoyed this post at Pocket Blonde several weeks ago, and had to share it! A custom-made perfect notebook is a dream many of us have, but how many people actually make it a reality? Chuck did– he designed a leather cover and refill pads to create his perfect notebook:

I designed this book because no other notebook combines size, convenience and style in the way that I needed. I began by designing the leather cover. This cover had to be small enough to fit in the back pocket of jeans and the inside pocket of jackets, but large enough to hold a book capable of organizing concepts and information that may not be collected “linearly” (often when you talk to people, they make errors or omissions in what they say, and I’ve learned that you need to leave space by skipping lines, so that you can include what they left out at a later time). The cover was also to have a pen loop and receipt flap, but those were easier to add and came only after we knew the size of the cover was exactly right….

The only challenge after that was locating a company that could produce inserts exactly the right size (3 7/16″ by 6″) to fit the cover. I found such a company in Florida, that could generate a spiral bound flip top notebook exactly in bulk. They did send a mock up for free, without which I’m not sure I could have committed the $400 they eventually wanted for the whole job.

Chuck paid a total of $450 for this, which may seem like a lot, but he estimates he now has 8 years’ worth of notebooks. That works out to only $56.25 per year, or $4.69 per month, which actually seems pretty economical. My only worry with doing something like this would be that my idea of “perfect” might change over 8 years, or that I’d pay someone to make something and they’d only get it 90% perfect… but I still might have to try it someday!

Lots more description and photos at Pocket Blonde: The Perfect Little Black Notebook: My Custom Design that Ended the Quest.