Sometimes I see a notebook and just think, “Ugh. Why??” Here is an example:
A notebook dedicated to composing Twitter tweets in 3 drafts? I guess it could be a good gag gift for someone but otherwise it seems like a waste of paper to me!
If you disagree, you can buy one here!
My Modern Met interviews a talented artist whose notebooks are a constant companion as he travels the world. Adam Hackländer’s travel journals have a style very similar to (and probably inspired by) José Naranja’s notebooks:
In the age of everything digital, Hackländer’s handcrafted keepsakes offer a more deliberate and thoughtful form of remembering his journeys. He’s not mindlessly snapping photos only to forget what they mean later on. He records everything from the currency exchange rate to the brilliant red-orange sun over a temple in Kyoto, Japan. No matter how mundane or amazing, the combination of pictures and words give his experiences some context so that he can return to them again and again. “Nothing beats the feeling when you read an old journal and recall everything you’ve done,†Hackländer tells My Modern Met.
Read more at My Modern Met: Interview: How an Avid Traveler Chronicles His Adventures Through Illustrated Journals
You can see more of Adam Hackländer’s travel journals on his Instagram feed.
I came across an article from The Economist about a new exhibition at the British Library, which sounds great: it’s all about the history of writing and note-taking. The article is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but here’s a taste:
NEATLY HANDWRITTEN, with a simple diagram below a numbered list, the sheet looks like any fussy hobbyist’s record of some cranky project in a garden shed. This, though, is a page taken from a hospital bacteriologist’s lab notebooks in December 1928. A few weeks previously, the researcher had found by chance that a common-as-muck fungus had contaminated his experiment but seemed to be purging bacteria. This sheet confirms that Penicillium, that nasty old mould that thrives in damp, has thoroughly zapped the streptococcus bacteria in a blood sample. Within 15 years, Alexander Fleming’s discovery at St Mary’s Hospital in London had—thanks to biochemists Ernst Chain and Howard Florey—led to effective penicillin treatment. It would inaugurate the antibiotic revolution, save tens of millions of lives and even (in some accounts) help win the second world war after its supply to Allied forces after D-Day.Â
At the British Library (BL), Fleming’s modest but epoch-making notes sit alongside a selection of other illustrious scrawls as part of the exhibition “Writing: Making Your Mark .
Source: The Economist: The Magic of Notebooks
The exhibition runs until August 27, 2019. Find out more at the British Library website.
If you love looking at other people’s travel journals, check out Notes from the Road. Erik Gauger has traveled to some amazing places, and filled lots of travel journals with sketches and notes.
Instead of carrying around dozens of heavy guidebooks when I travel, I condense my useful information into a small size Moleskine travel journal.
I use Moleskine journals to organize all my travel ideas, travel plans, make notes, record my conversations, draw travel sketches, make notes on animal plants, and draw people and street scenes.
You can see more of his journals here, but be sure to check out the rest of his travel blog, which is more long-form writing and incredible photography.
One of these days, I will use one of the Paperblanks notebooks I’ve been hoarding. I have a few of them that I’ve picked up over the years (usually during a once a year visit to a wonderful little bookshop in Lewes, Delaware called Biblion), and I’m always very impressed by their quality. I’m also shocked that I don’t see more buzz about them from the fountain pen community, as some of them have wonderful paper.
This Paperblanks notebook is the Solis Mini, from a series called Nova Stella. It is designed to look like an antique leather bound book with gold embossing. What makes it even more elegant is the faux marbling on the page edges! It feels like a sumptuous hand-bound book– up to a point, at least. The cover material is smooth and not leathery, but there is embossing all over that gives it a nice texture. The look is spoiled a bit when you use the elastic closure– I would have used a different color, maybe gold or brown, so it would clash less than the black does. But the nice thing about Paperblanks elastics is that they tuck away invisibly next to the back pocket when you’re not using them.
At 240 pages, which is higher than usual for a pocket size notebook, it is chunky and has a nice weight to it, without being so heavy you wouldn’t want to carry it around. The spine is rounded and the page edges follow this curve. In the photos below, the black notebook is a pocket size Moleskine for comparison.
There are black and white headbands that seem to be integrated into the sewing of the binding, which is very unusual for notebooks these days. Usually the headbands are glued on bits of braided yarn and you can see the frayed edges where they are just cut at the ends– what is supposed to mimic a fine bookbinding detail ends up looking cheap and tacky. But in the Paperblanks notebook, they seem tightly woven in to a sturdy, reinforced spine, though I’d have to dissect the whole notebook to really figure out how it’s made. And once more, I do wish they had used a different color for the headbands!
One other thing I really like about the exterior: very minimal cover overhang, with tight corners.
Inside, there are brown endpapers, and a red ribbon marker (which, again, might have been nicer in gold). Inside the back cover is an expanding pocket, and a note about the inspiration for the design. I really like how they give you this background on the historical source.
The paper inside is creamy white and feels thicker than average. No paper weight is specified on the notebook, but the Paperblanks website says it is 120 GSM. It is unlined, which I have found hard to find in Paperblanks displays in stores, where most of their notebooks seem to be lined. This paper is really great and truly fountain pen friendly, with no bleed or feathering and a nice glow to colored inks. Show-through and bleed-through are much less than average in general.
The paper is so good, I decided to also test some watercolors to see how this would work as a sketchbook. The paper actually does fine with light use of watercolors– it buckled when it was wet but flattened out after it dried and the notebook had been closed for a few minutes. I wouldn’t recommend a lot of scrubby wet brushwork in this notebook but it will do fine with moderate use of watercolors or markers– I also tested some grey Pitt Artist Pens at the bottom of the watercolor page. (You can see the back of the watercolor test page facing the front of the fountain pen test page.)
Note: not all Paperblanks notebooks use this same paper. Their reporter style notebooks offer a grid page option, but the paper is only 80 GSM– I’ve tested one and it did not perform as well as the Solis. Also see 2013 Paperblanks notebook review here– another unlined paper that did well with fountain pens. Other Paperblanks notebooks range from 80 to 100 or 120 GSM, so if you are looking at buying one, check their website to see which paper is inside.)
The suggested retail price on this notebook is $16.95, which is slightly higher than average for most hardcover journals this size. But to me the extra page count, fountain pen friendly paper and high quality construction make it worth the price. And as of this writing the mini size is only $13.63 on Amazon. Other sizes are also available.
I really love the Paperblanks Nova Stella Solis notebook and will be keeping a closer eye on what Paperblanks is up to. My personal preference tends to be more minimal cover designs but when I see things like this Solis design or the Old Leather notebook I bought years ago, I am inspired to mix things up and add a little more pizzazz to my collection! This one is definitely going in the “use someday” pile.
If you are an astrology buff and a notebook addict, this article at Book Riot is for you:
Find the perfect zodiac notebooks and zodiac journals with this guide to all things star signs, moon signs, and more.
Here’s a few of my favorites, all from Etsy sellers:
Source: Your Horoscope Says You Need Zodiac Notebooks | Book Riot
Fabulous page from the diary of artist Duncan Hannah, as featured in the Paris Review:
Source: Diaries, 1970–73
In a separate article, the Paris Review also featured this photo of all Hannah’s diaries:
Source: Duncan Hannah’s New York
Found via Austin Kleon’s Inspiring Diaries
This week’s addict displays this lovely scattered pile of completed notebooks on Instagram:
I love all those raggedy edges and stuffed covers! And I want to see the pile of blank notebooks too!
Check out Mara’s Instagram feed for even more, including sketchbooks she has handbound and the beautiful art she creates inside them: @mararhum
I’d never heard this term before until reading a post at The London Parchment:
I am SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy) on almost all stationery products, particularly with Field Notes.
What a handy abbreviation! I myself am probably not SABLE on notebooks, though I may need to reassess since I’ve lost track of where things stand after this past year’s acquisitions. As noted in this post and this post, I do make calculations about how long my notebook stash will last vs. my typical usage rate:
56 sketchbooks divided by 3 a year is a little less than 19 years, and I’ll only be about 67 years old at that point. The squared ones, if extended with the plain and ruled notebooks, will last up to 32 years, when I’ll be 81. I can probably ease off buying any more of those (unless I spot any really good cheap ones!) but I think I’m allowed to buy some more sketchbooks. Yay!
But I have to note that all but one of my grandparents lived well into their 90s, so it would seem that longevity is in my genes. I’m very healthy and hoping I stay that way for many years to come, thus I feel it’s only prudent to make sure I have enough notebooks to last me until the age of 95, or maybe 100.
I am unable to count all my spare notebooks right now because many of them are in a storage unit. So to be on the safe side, I probably shouldn’t stop buying more until I have a fully accurate grasp of the situation. Right?
And what if the singularity really is near? Radical life extension could really mess up my plans. The safest thing is to be prepared… by buying more notebooks.
I found this image on the School of Visual Arts website, as part of a feature on artists’ journals. Carl Titolo teaches at SVA and has been keeping sketchbooks for over 50 years. I love the dense pages full of patterns and details. It’s also interesting to see that at least in this case, he used a sketchbook where pens bled through to the back of the paper, adding another version of each page with a different tone and texture. There is a video in the linked article where you can see a flip-through of this entire sketchbook.
If you were to open a flat-file drawer in the Manhattan studio of Carl Titolo (G 1967), you should pull up a chair—you’re probably going to want to stay a while. The drawers are filled with layer upon layer of sketchbooks; each opens to a spread carpeted with minute, jewel-toned paintings, delicate pen drawings and jottings about art, food and architecture. Titolo calls these sketchbooks, which he has been keeping for more than 50 years, “appetizers.” For any visually minded person, they amount to a feast.
Read more about Carl Titolo and two other SVA alumni sketchbook keepers at: Bookkeeping: The Art of Artists’ Journals [Video]