moleskinerie

The Moodofly Artists Collaborative

From our friend Ana Maria Seaton:

   

I am working with a fabulous company called Modofly [ http://www.modofly.net ] who has gathered a collaborative collective of over 25 artists, myself included, to produce a new line of uniquely artful Moleskines. Their new site JUST went live with the new collection and I'm dancing all over the house. LOL There are some incredible artists and I hope that you will take a moment to wander through it and show it your support!
    
    You can find my journals via the links below but make sure you click on the "Journals & Sketchbooks" link at the top to check out the rest of the journals now available! There some really incredible artists and I am proud to be listed among them.
    
    http://www.modofly.net/products/panel-lily
    http://www.modofly.net/products/aqualilium
    
    Anytime you go to www.modofly.net just type in the name "Ana Maria Seaton" or simply "Ria" and all of the journals that carry my art will come up. This is the first of many submissions and there are already more in the works!

Rickshaw Moleskine Case

Mark Dwight updates the progress of Rickshaw's Moleskine Case.
Courtesy of Patrick Ng.

[Thanks to Stephen Carrier]

Track Spending With A Moleskine Notebook

Ben Popken at The Consumerist with a tip for keeping track of your finances, simply.

One of the first steps to take in getting a handle on your budget is to start tracking your spending, and for those who like to do it analog, moleskine small ruled notebooks ($10.50) are awesome.

They fit in your pocket. They have a nice hard cover with a bit of pliancy. There's a folder in the back where you can hold receipts. There's a built in ribbon as a bookmark. An elastic strap keeps the whole book bound shut. It feels very legit and professional, yet personal.

Ok, so what's the point of all this fetishization? Won't a regular notebook or piece of paper do? Certainly.

Read the full post.

[via J. Godsey]

[Originally posted 6.27.07. We will be back to our daily posting schedule tomorrow]

Ben Popken at The Consumerist with a tip for keeping track of your finances, simply.

One of the first steps to take in getting a handle on your budget is to start tracking your spending, and for those who like to do it analog, moleskine small ruled notebooks ($10.50) are awesome.

They fit in your pocket. They have a nice hard cover with a bit of pliancy. There's a folder in the back where you can hold receipts. There's a built in ribbon as a bookmark. An elastic strap keeps the whole book bound shut. It feels very legit and professional, yet personal.

Ok, so what's the point of all this fetishization? Won't a regular notebook or piece of paper do? Certainly.

Read the full post.

[via J. Godsey]

[Originally posted 6.27.07. We will be back to our daily posting schedule tomorrow]

A love letter to Moleskine

Found this quaint plea in our online meanderings:

"Well, dearheart, here is the one, single, tiny, itty bitty thing I want so badly I can feel it in my bones. A Moleskine of my own. Not just any Moleskine, oh no. I require a special Moleskine. One that hasn't been created yet. I need a Moleskine city notebook for Edinburgh.

Oh my love, please allow this dream to come true.  Please be mine in 2009!

All my love,

Dawn Z(ed)"

LINK

Moresukine, the book

Dirk Schwieger of the Moresukine blog has compiled his sketches into a book:

Dirk lived in Tokyo, had a comics blog where he had people dare him to try all sorts of different things, exotic, disgusting, revealing, whatever!, in this land of the rising sun, and then relate it with funky humor on the blog. Result is quite a fascinating inside look at the Japanese society, how they live, how they think, what they eat. Moresukine is the Japanese way of pronouncing Moleskine as these comics were created on one. This graphic novel comes designed exactly like a Moleskine: black cover, rounded edges, ribbon page mark...and other artists also contribute with their take on this adventure,
including James Kochalka and Ryan North.

“What a fun idea”
-Neil Gaiman
"A hell of a lot of fun to read, and a great idea for a comics/journal blog".
-Evan Dorkin

Learn more at the book site.
Visit Dirk's blog.

7 Reasons To Ditch Your PDA And Switch To Pen And Paper

From Organize It /UK, more reasons to switch to pen and paper:

"It’s simple
What’s more simple than a basic biro pen and notepad from your local stationary store? A pencil perhaps? Really, this should be a no brainer.

It’s portable
Ok, sure. Maybe a iPhone, Blackberry and even a laptop is portable. You can travel from city to city with them fairly easily. But they simply don’t match up to paper solutions, which come in all sizes and can be folded, bent and even ripped up as required.

It’s cheap
No hi tech solution comes close in price. The gulf is so wide that you could even buy a good quality pen and a Moleskine and still have change spare for an holiday to Spain… maybe. Another plus is you won’t have to upgrade your notepad every other year to keep up with your techie friends...."

More

Photo: "Moleskine Thoughts" by NymphDuPave
© All rights reserved

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

 

Softcover Moleskine Review

Black Cover's Nick Carr takes a closer look at the new soft cover Moleskine notebook:

"Besides being flexible, the cover is made of the standard Moleskine oil skin cloth (without being backed by a thick piece of cardboard). I was a little surprised to find some nicks and a scratch in the cover when I took it out of its shipping box - time will tell how durable it is to wear and tear. But for the moment, I’ll chalk that up to the postal service....

...I still maintain this about a quarter of an inch too large, but with the softcover, the dimensions are a lot more manageable. I put this in my back pocket as I drove home from work today, and completely forgot it was there....

...All in all, I was very impressed with the Moleskine softcover. It’s firm enough to be durable, yet flexible enough to carry in pretty much any pocket. It comes with all the perks of the standard hard cover Moleskine, and besides the crooked lines, is a very strong little black notebook...."

Read the full post

Debossing your Moleskine

No, its not taking your notebook off management's hands. Eric Au, a Master's Candidate in Industrial Design at the University of Calgary has come up with this very cool M Mod:

"I have been a user of moleskines since about 1 year ago. I found that they were great b/c I could cram alot of stuff into them and at the end of each one, would be filled and ultra thick with information and design. I am an industrial design masters student and since joining the formal design community, I found it useful to make things very personalized, but keep them designer-ish. So I set out to make a debossing effect on the front cover."

" After careful thought, the best solution would be using some old typewritter fonts that would be used for a Canon electric typewritter that had exchangable wheels for different fonts. I aquired some through a very nice resource centre friend and staff. I carefully taped down the letters to form my name and the word design since that would be the purpose of this moleskine and each successful one from now on. Then taped the pattern of letters on the cover and tapped them with a hammer to depress the letters in the soft oilskin."

"The results were impressive and I enjoy it immensely. I will be doing these with maybe themes since I have a few sets of fonts. Stuff like differentiating the differences between the multiple moleskines I currently employ as my devices. I use the large and small grid ones."

"I hope this provides another way to personalize the front of the moleskine, but keep the clean and classic look of the book. For those who understand typography and care, the font is Orator size 10. Enjoy!"

Visit ericau.net.

View larger versions at Moleskinerie/FLICKR: 1 2 3 4

Homework help:

"Debossing: an inverted form of embossing in which a relief plate is placed under the sheet of paper as it is run through a press. That area of the paper is thus lowered, rather than raised.

Embossed print: a print in which a three-dimensional effect is achieved through the pressing of the paper into the crevices of the plate or wood block."

[via Silent Partner Consulting]

Comment? Go to the original post.
Current discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups

1000 Journals

C. McNair Wilson  on the 1000 Journals Project:

"Now a new wave of little books has been launched 1001 Journals. There, as with the original site you can register and sign up to have one of the new journals sent to you. You can also start your own journal to send around, or keep "closed" among a set group of friends, co-workers. You can also scan pages and download them to the website. I believe art was given to us by our Creator to provide a vehicle for us to illuminate, teach, and inspire each other through our individual creative expression. The original 1000 Journals Project and then Andrea's film do all that and so much more.

What number journal will you be?"

Learn more at "Tea with McNair"

Photo: The 1000 Journals Project.

Spray can painting and silk-screen printing Moleskine covers

I am a potter and a printmaker. I like etching and linocut but nowadays I make silkscreen prints and sometimes print directly into my moleskine sketchbook. Last week I was printing some T-shirts and suddenly decided to print the same design on the cover of my Japanese folded Moleskine with the metallic water-based ink. This Japanese album will be used for the International Moleskine Exchange Project, group Moly_X_17.

I have also printed self-made water slide-off decals with the coat of arms. I thought the black cover of a moleskine sketchbook was too dark for black outlines and a helmet without a background. So I have painted it first with a spray can, the kind that street artists use for graffiti.

by Katya Taganova
View on FLICKR

© All rights reserved

Pen Clip

From Charles & Marie; home of always cool stuff:

"By now you should know that we are suckers for all things smart and helpful and this is another prime example! Such a smart contraption – and so simple! It's a clip that you can attach to pretty much any notebook or folder or diary of your choice and once done so, you can attach your writing utensil of choice to it.

It is such a simple idea, but so amazingly clever! .."

LINK

The 2008 Chicago Pen Show

Photos from the Chicago Pen Show held at the Westin O'Hare on Sunday, May 4.

View the FLICKR photo set.

Recent black notebook sightings

While watching the seventh season of the Stargate SG-1 series I realized that one of the main characters of the series Dr. Daniel Jackson uses a notebook that just have to be the Moleskine. It's the third episode (Fragile Balance) of that season.

Wojciech Ruchniewicz
Related link: Stargate Official Site

Is this everybody's favorite notebook in frame one of the webcomic "Questionable Content"?

Fred Kiesche
Image link

View the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. We'll see you on Monday.

Tm Baynes : Sao Paulo

COM OS PAULISTOS

(For my friends here, especially M)

January and 32 degrees of heat

Everyone noticeably more tanned than me

Energy and colour still the same in San Paulo

Traffic still crazy

People still friendly

Now the place is familiar and the rhythm is right.

I have the same driver at the airport, Elaine

She greets me with a big smile

We hug and make the pact:

To rendezvous on time for the journey back in three days time

I know where I am are going

Into the Hilton at 8am and the Bell Boy organises a coffee

It arrives before you have finished checking in

Service and miles my home for three days

Glass marble and pale pale wood

Chocolates from the manager

Across the plaza from the hotel and into the office

A second home for the duration

San Paulo,

Energy and heat and wonderful women

Brazil so famous for fabulous womanhood

Travel the greatest privilege, the work there too

Be grateful for only the minutes or hours you have to step out

To soak up the culture

Travelling is being open and appreciative.

Can there be a better evening than in the company of a friend?

The best of warm conversation

Just two bars full of Paulistos,

In both I am the only gringo in the Mercearia and Posto Seis

M and I talk of work, talk of history and culture,

I hear about Luiz de Camões,

His book Os Lusíadas

Portugal’s Chaucer

Learning that Portuguese was born out of Spanish

That the former can understand the latter but not the other way around

Discovering how big and beautiful this country really is

Travel is learning.

In each and every bar the same energy, People out talking, enjoying the warm summer evening,

Music, music oozing out of every pore

Brazilian beer and small side dishes

Sustenance as substantive as any banquet

Flavoured and garnished with laughter and conversation

Oh lucky traveller.

Thank you M.

Tim Baynes
Visit his blog
And website

© 2003-2008 TBaynes All Rights Reserved 

Featured Artist: Joanna Gniady

"Moleskine is one of the things I can’t do without. It is an obsession, addiction, everlasting love. Full of memories and dreams, quotes and poems, names and ideas, it is a kind of map, showing where I have been, where I am now and where I would like to be. I wish I could draw and fill my Moleskine with sketches of fascinating places, people or objects. Instead, I write about them, using the old Parker 51, crazy Waterman Audace and dear Marlen roller.

Moleskine is also one of the dreams that came true. The first one I got a year ago and it was a wonderful surprise and very important present. I will never forget the moment when I took it out from the yellow envelope and gazed at it, turning page by page, as if it was the most awaited book in my whole life. From that time I have gathered a couple of Moleskines and always have some of them at hand – in my handbag, under the bed, next to the morning cup of coffee.

I do believe in magic hidden in people and things. Moleskine embodies it for certain."

Joanna Gniady

Visit her blog, "Dream After Dream"
View her Moleskine photoset on FLICKR