I noticed a few articles recently about a “new art collection” from Moleskine.
Moleskine has launched a fresh range of notebooks and sketchbooks specifically designed for artists and their creative process, including space to draw, sketch, use watercolours, storyboard and compose music. The books come in different sizes, shapes and styles, including a Japanese album with concertina pages.
The new Art Collection celebrates the creative process through an array of weights, sizes and functions, such as blank and lined pages, pages thick enough to withstand using watercolours on both sides, pages with storyboard thumbnails and sketchbooks with concertina pages that you can fold out for more sketching room.
The sketchbooks come with soft and hardcovers with a choice of horizontal and vertical styles, with sizes from small reporter-style pads to the concertina style pages of the Japanese album, ideal if you’re working with pen, pencil, pastels and charcoal for example.
Ever optimistic, I thought this might mean some new and improved products, but oddly, most of the products mentioned seem to be the same exact things they’ve always offered, with a slight rebranding from “Art Plus” (which never made sense anyway) to “Art Collection.” Actually, the whole rollout is a bit of a “now with less!” situation: if you look at the Moleskine website page dedicated to this collection, you’ll see that the Storyboard notebook now seems to be available only in the larger size, not pocket. Same thing with the Music notebook, now only listed in the large size. They also seem to have an error where they are showing photos of a Watercolor “Album” with the description of a Watercolor “Notebook,” and vice versa. The “Album,” based on the photos, is the landscape format they’ve always offered. The “Notebook” is a portrait version, which is actually a great addition to the product line, but disappointingly, only comes in the large size, not pocket.
As far as I can tell, what’s new other than the portrait orientation Watercolor Notebook is a large hardcover Sketchbook with a blue cover. They also have a Sketch Album (softcover landscape format) in size XXL (8.5 x11″) which I don’t recall seeing before. And if you just want existing products packaged together for gift-giving, they are offering a Sketching Kit that pairs a large sketchbook with some pencils.
(I also noticed that they seem to have removed the notebooks with black pages from their website.)
One thing about the article that was handy, however, was this chart that outlines the different paper types Moleskine uses.
This makes me want to go back and do some more pen-testing to see how their claims hold up!
Source: See Moleskine’s new art collection of notebooks and sketchbooks – News – Digital Arts
I never know what to think of Molie. Capitalism at its best or worst? Like Nespresso, Moleskine is a brand that does not really deserve its reputation for luxuxury status.
Still, I love the pocket sized notebooks. I try to only buy at 50% and in quantity. Got ten years’ worth now. Should never need to buy another.
Umm, on the storyboard notebook: film and television producers and designers have been working in 16×9 apertures for 20 years now but Molie continued to sell their 4×3 (the ancient USA TV format) anachronism for full price without informing customers it was hopelessly outdated. The new “art†listing does not describe at all what you’re going to see when you open your new notebook. All other mfrs’ storyboard notebooks clearly describe the format because they are marketed to craftspeople in the business instead of what might be described kindly as Molie’s demographic of wannabes.