Moleskine Musings

Being social animals, human beings tend to allow their better judgement to be stampeded by the crowd's impulses. This applies not only to the followers of trends, but their critics: the bigger the icon, the bigger the kudos accorded those who accomplish its takedown.This is only aided by the ephemeral nature of popularity: both sides to laud–or criticise–things based on their aura rather than the true nature of the thing itself.

A recent example of this is the Moleskine notebook. Produced by the Italian company Modo e Modo, Moleskines are essentially copies of a French design. Their advertising copy links them to a number of literary and artistic luminaries: Hemingway, Chatwin, Picasso. Since all of these people are dead, they can't complain that they never, in fact, used the notebooks in question, although they may well have used very similar ones (Chatwin certainly did; his were purchased from a Parisian stationer, until the supplier closed down in 1986).

This is really where the trouble starts. Coupled with their good looks (the Moleskine is a very attractive notebook), the cachet of the artists and writers essentially providing endorsements for them gave Moleskine notebooks the jumpstart they needed. It's important to note that the kind of person who will spend time looking for the perfect notebook is generally the classic "early adopter" so beloved of computer technology companies, and I suspect they (we) are perhaps more vulnerable to the lure of the Moleskine's whispered promises."Buy me," it seems to say, "and you too can be inspired to write like Hemingway."

Marketing does not fool us, exactly; it hands us the lines we feed ourselves. Seduction is something we allow to happen, and investing objects with mysterious power is an old trap. We want to believe that possessing these items is what will give us power, or wealth, or inspiration; we want to deny that 'genius' is a label we apply to those who are both supremely gifted and work harder than anyone else. Olympic athletes have a genetic makeup that makes them suited for their chosen sport, but this is at best a starting point; potential will always go unfulfilled unless it is accompanied by a daily grind of back-breaking labour. Nobody wants to hear this; it's not a cheering message. The idea that we simply lack some talisman, owned by those whose powers we aspire to possess, is a far more attractive one.

The story so far: early adopters are drawn in by a combination of factors, one of which is the mystique evoked by Modo e Modo's marketing copy; the cult of the Moleskine grows, and they begin to crop up in a multitude of stationery, art and book shops, helped along by distribution agreements with several major chain bookstores (Barnes and Noble, Waterstone's). Enter the critics, with the message that Moleskine fans are clearly being taken for the proverbial ride, Hemingway and Chatwin never bought Modo e Modo products, and that the talismanic qualities that are (implicitly or explicitly) being appealed to do not, in fact, exist.

Several lines of argument appear in response to such sceptical claims; I do not claim any of them as my own, merely hoping to summarise the main position.

f1) They're just good notebooks, better than anything else on the market; yes, you pay a premium for them, but it's worth it to have the best.

f2) The talismanic qualities do exist; I write more and better in my Moleskine than I did before. Of course, the Moleskine only serves to evoke this response in me–it isn't some kind of immaterial power residing in the notebook itself–but if the effect is real, surely the end result is the same.

f3) I just like them, it's a personal aesthetic preference. I don't deny the marketing argument, but you have no basis for criticism as far as subjective preference goes.

There isn't much consensus on f1; some think that there are better notebooks, or cheaper notebooks that are just as good. Many don't. Personally I haven't found any that are both as well made and suit my personal needs as perfectly, and I suspect many of those needs generalise well. Briefly, the pocket Moleskines are compact, with a high page count for their size, and good paper (albeit with well-documented feathering and bleed issues; you need to choose your pen carefully). They are stitched and bound in oilskin-covered card, which makes them resilient. Lastly, they have several nice touches that make them stand out from the crowd. The built-in bookmark and elastic snap that keeps it closed while not in use are of obvious utility; the back pocket grows on one. I use mine to carry library photocopier cards and Post-it notes.

The second argument is trickier. Merlin Mann calls the Moleskine a MacGuffin, which seems to have a certain truth to it. However, speaking of the Moleskine in these terms does it something of a disservice, and does not tell the whole story by any means. On the one hand, it may draw out certain good behaviours in some people: writing more, writing better. The Moleskine, when evoking these tendencies, helps define an ideal we aspire to (it may do this by instantiating a certain ideal itself, that of the ideal notebook, or at least coming closer than other notebooks).

As portentous as this sounds, it is only one side of the truth; the downside is that a Moleskine can inhibit as much as inspire. By declaring this ideal of good writing, it poses a challenge–or an obstacle. If one is constantly second-guessing oneself, worrying about whether what one is writing is in some way 'worthy' of being written down in a Moleskine, then it is that much harder to write anything. The loudest voices may be of those trumpeting their new muse, but it may simply be that those who find the Moleskine a mental burden do not exist; perhaps they are ashamed of their failings, or simply don't recognise the syndrome.

Having suffered from this problem myself, I suspect that which side of the fence one falls on is due to temperament, and how one views one's writing. When I initially purchased a Moleskine, several years ago, I wrote fairly prolifically about a story I was trying to write, but I didn't get much of the story itself written. Entering a period of greater depression, my doubts assailed me with more vigour, and my writing petered out. Whenever I did try to write, I had to use simple sheets of lined paper; if I sat down with my Moleskine, I would stare at the empty page, trying to think of something worthwhile to write. As my condition improved, I began writing more often in the Moleskine, and now I write in it at least every couple of days. Many of the posts on this blog began life as musings in my Moleskine.

There is a third point, of course, which is that whatever the Moleskine is, it is not simply a talismanic object. It is, in fact, a notebook–and rather a good one at that. In my initial paragraph I warned against the seductive nature of the aura surrounding a fashionable object, and here we can see that warning realised. The fan claims that the Moleskine helps them write more, and better; the critic responds that in many cases, using a Moleskine may actually hinder the writing process. All this does is polarise the debate: what we should be doing is looking at how these claims really relate to an individual choice (that is to say, whether or not they buy one, if they're thinking about doing so). I don't mean to claim that a given transaction (or the set of all such transactions) is the only thing that gives this argument meaning, but it is certainly an important nexus of it.

What do I mean by this? Well, to begin with, the decision puts these arguments in a context, relates them to behaviour, and generally provides some much-needed perspective. The question of how an individual's writing will be affected by using a Moleskine is an individual one: it depends on their circumstances, their nature. Moreover, there are practical questions: is this the right kind of notebook for me? What does it do better than the rest? Is the price worth it? These issues depend on the individual, on the context in which the questions are asked, not on spurious normative claims. The hard work of answering a question is done once the terms of the question and the context in which it is being asked are defined closely enough.

These questions of individual circumstance bring us to the third argument. Essentially, it grows from a confusion about subjectivity: the word 'subjective' is used as a shorthand to mean "circumstances specific to me". When someone says that buying a Moleskine is "A personal preference", or "A subjective judgment", what they really mean is "It suits my needs, but not necessarily yours." This isn't what it really means for something to be subjective: the circumstances on which the choice is based are in fact objective facts; if you were in their position, you would make a different choice. There probably is an element of subjective aesthetic appreciation, but I think that if it exists (this is a point of philosophical contention) its influence is overrated.

I have several Moleskines in current operation: a sketchbook, some Cahiers for ultimate portability and throwaway scribbles, and a lined notebook in which I write… well, pretty much whatever I feel like. A couple of months ago I wrote the following in it:

"Decided that too much sanctity is stifling me. Need to loosen up. Consequently, this notebook will loosen up—starting with some Post-it artwork. The Moleskine crazy is apparently, just like the iPod, big. Now I'm just one of the crowd. Still, nice to be an early adopter for once, even if I haven't written in it as much as I might (I put this down to the aforementioned desire not to violate such a beautiful notebook with incessant and unremarkable scribbling)."

Post-its are another good way of avoiding this problem; I draw on them, badly, then stick the good ones in the Moleskine. However, I've decided it's high time I did more of it—so I bought a Moleskine Sketchbook. We'll see how it goes.

Benedict Eastaugh: "I’m a 22-year old Philosophy student and web designer, and I’ve been doing design work since 2001 or so. My experience extends from large community portals to research group sites, and encompasses a lot of work for small businesses and self-employed individuals.

LINK to original article.

Image: ome punkster

Comments

[TubbyMike]

Benedict.

A well thought out post that brings some rational thinking to the whole "aren't they great?" debate. I. like you, was an early adopter of the Moleskine. I have no great writing or drawing talents and was becoming more than a little intimidated by the huge "are they / aren't they" hype that has now surrounded these little note books.

Perhaps it's just a result of conflicting forces that apply to the selling of Moleskines? When Moleskines were almost unheard of and I had to visit backstreet stationers to get hold of them, it was kind of nice to feel that you were in on the 'secret' that these well-engineered books existed. However, that rarity does Modo & Modo no favours, because their objective is to sell lots more of them to make money; I wonder how we early adopters would have felt if the Moleskine had vanished because M & M had gone bust?

I was introduced to Moleskine by word-of-mouth (my boss at the time), and I suspect that this type of marketing accounted for the majority of sales in the early days. Sales by word-of-mouth only can't last if a product is to be widely sold and successful. (I suspect there are various marketing lectures given in many faculties on just this subject.) In a way Moleskines are a victim of their own success...

Anyway, what I meant to say before going off on one, was "Thanks for bringing reason to an overheated subject". I enjoy browsing this site in my lunch break for all of the interesting and creative things that get posted here, but recent posts have had the feel of the beginnings of a flame war. Ugh. In the final analysis, the Moleskine is just another note book. A good one with many fine features yes, but...

[zephyr]

Interesting and much food for thought. But I will just share that I fell in love with--became obsessed with--my first moleskines LONG before I heard about the so-called history of the notebook or was seduced by the "aura" of moleskine bloggery. The quality did it for me...and the satisfying chubbiness of the pocket dairy...a page for each day. and the quality of the book itself became--yes, a muse--for finding, recording and remembering even the smallest "quality" moments in my life---just for me to go back to so I can fight off the darkness that threatens to take over my thoughts. Sounds overly dramatic, I know, but in my experience, that's how the evil disease called depression tries to bring me down. A stack of friendly notebooks filled with evidence that there is much light in the world, my world at least, (and this year it is a moleskine) help me keep putting one foot in front of the other and realize I am sometimes smiling "for no reason"

the qualities of an object certainly do have the potential to lift it to the status of a talisman....smoothness is not only seductive, it can also be very soothing.

[N.A. Rickenback]

Thoughtful article, well written and provoking.
I have now officially read one too many articles on writing
receptacles, or more accurately: On the validity of the argument (or
the argument of the validity) over choosing a receptacle based upon
it's advertising. My thoughts play out as follows: If you are choosing something to write in based upon
it's alleged famous users in times past, then you should perhaps begin
again and re-examine the reasons that you are writing in the first
place. This is a most ridiculous argument, which has been drawn out to
proportions it does not deserve to inhabit. For the Moleskine user,
any argument waged against them (the notebooks), simply lacks a leg to
stand on.

Now on the other hand, anyone who chooses to use a ballpoint pen for
their writing endeavors is simply in need of a good talking to. How's
that for an argument? But seriously, one thing that I haven't yet seen mentioned is that the fervent discussions over these ten dollar well-made notebooks is certainly serving as good publicity for the brand.

[Abizer]

I notice you have an image credit but don't say whether or not you have permission.

Quite a few Flickr images are licenced under Creative Commons, but this one wasn't.

[Armand B. Frasco]

Thanks for the reminder, Abizer. I'll contact the photographer.
...
If warranted, we will discuss copyright/fair use issues in a separate post. Now back to "Moleskine Musings".
...
Update 4.08.05, 10.02.05 AM CST:

"Armand,

No problem, you can use it. I'm honoured, since I like your
site! Reminds me I have to make a proper CC license!

Regards
Frank"

[Abizer]

Great, I didn't think it would be a problem, but it's a good idea to check these things. Not least because Ome Punkster will use a cc.

Moleskinerie has used one of my pictures before under a cc, and I, too, am honoured.

(Sorry if I came across as a pedant, that wasn't my intention, but I had a short lunch break)

[Armand]

No worries.

[Marion]

I like the notebook and other fine things. Yet I am reminded of a saying recently on my Zen calendar: "Even a good thing isn't as good as nothing."

[Ben Eastaugh]

Thanks for the kind words, and especially to Armand for putting this up here. I think my blog has about five readers, and being a regular visitor here it was nice to feel I was contributing something in my small way.

N.A. Rickenback: I don't think that anyone would actually agree that one should purchase a product based on its advertising, rather than its merits as a product. This is why the complaint that Moleskine users are just buying them because they were used by Chatwin, Hemingway et al (or not, as the case may be) is so effective. However, all it really does is raise the emotional tone of the debate; we should certainly examine our motivations for buying products, especially ones with such an aura of coolness as the Moleskine, but nonetheless it's counter-productive to get into such heated arguments over what is, as well all keep saying, just a notebook (although I wonder at why we feel the need to repeat this mantra; plenty of people have stranger obsessions).

That said, I do feel there are a couple of areas where in retrospect I think my article was lacking. Firstly, I think I failed to convey the nuance of what I dismissed as "marketing copy". Once we recognise that someone is trying to hoodwink us, we perhaps give too much weight to the fact that we have realised it, and forget the extent to which we were lured in. The Chatwin story is a good story, well told, and effective for what it does. In fact, it was good enough to get me to start reading his work.

Secondly, I could (as zephyr mentioned) have done with taking more time to discuss the allure of the Moleskine as a notebook and simply as a physical artefact. It has a tremenous aesthetic appeal, which I mentioned but didn't expand on. Still, the article was a fair length already, so I think I'll probably just put these things into a new post at some point in the near future.

Mike: I suppose to an extent we have exchanged mystique for availability. They will never have the cachet they did a couple of years ago when no one had heard of them, and people seeing you draw out your Moleskine for the first time would marvel at it. However, they're a lot easier to get hold of, although having said that I trudged through several major London bookshops last week without being able to find a sketchbook... In any case, I think early adopters in general are characterised by a certain obsessiveness, a willingness to go those extra lengths to seek out something special, and often also by evangelism: not only do we buy the things, we spread the word, and Modo e Modo were able to build on that very successfully. Again, this is something I think I could have conveyed in a more nuanced fashion in my article, but then you always see the mistakes once something goes public.

[Bill]

Ben, people may make decisions rationally, but they buy emotionally. This is a truth that every successful salesperson knows and uses, but one that most people prefer to deny. To admit that it is true saves a lot of time wasted on angst and self-justification. If people like the notebooks, if they find satisfaction in their use, it's ok just to say so.

The business about Chatwin et al. is a diversion, in a way. Certainly Modo & Modo can make such a claim; calling it "hoodwinking" is a little bit much, in my opinion. In my opinion, most people are savvy enough to realize that M&M's claims to a connection to past glories are "reaching."

The emotional response (one would hope) is to the design, perceived quality, and anticipated functionality of the Moleskine product, not to which writers and artists may have used similar products in the past, but it could be the latter. Whatever floats the buyer's boat.

[Ben Eastaugh]

I think the distinction you're trying to make between reason and emotion is meaningless; as Hume said, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." Which is to say that we are motivated by desires, and reason shows us the best ways to accomplish them. Indeed, I'm somewhat puzzled when you say that "people may make decisions rationally, but they buy emotionally." Isn't buying a decision?

I suppose the point I'm getting at is that one purchases a Moleskine because one desires it. What I'm interested in is why people desire them, and which of these reasons are the kind of reasons we should be allowing to influence our decisions. I don't think that simply saying that people do what they do, and we can't do anything about it, is good enough. We should be able to give a normative account of purchase decisions, and you (through your caveat "one would hope") implicitly accept this.

[TubbyMike]

Ben.

Thanks for replying to my post. Your additional comments lead me to agree entirely with your sentiment.

Your experiences in London mean that I have to ask: Why are the sketchbooks so hard to find at the moment? There seems to be a similar dearth in Birmingham too!

Thanks for an enlightened discussion and I hope to see another of your articles here in the future.

[Bill]

Ben, I wasn't trying to distinguish between reason and emotion. I was simply pointing out that the basis of purchasing is almost never rational. If it were, the Macintosh would be the best-selling computer in the world. With all due respect to the gentleman, I don't believe Hume was known for his ability to sell goods.

People buy Moleskines because they feel good about the purchase. You can never explain why people would choose one notebook over another through purely rational means. In fact, the easiest way to lose a sale is to give the prospect all of the rational reasons why she should pick your product. The easiest way to steal a sale from someone else is to make the buyer feel uncomfortable about their previous decision.

Take a marketing guru or a salesperson to lunch this week, and have him or her explain it to you.

[Ben Eastaugh]

Bill, I think you're misunderstanding my point; perhaps I wasn't clear enough. If that was the case, I apologise.

Rationality is not action-guiding; action cannot be explained through an appeal to rationality. People buy things, for example, because of emotional reasons. People buy things because they make them feel good. I do not disagree. Where we do appear to differ, however, is in thinking that it is possible to explain and quantify those emotional reasons. I think it is possible, and in fact desirable, to do so; you seem to think that it is in some way mysterious (sorry if I'm misreading you here). The idea (which I do not accuse you of subscribing to, although it does seem like a possible corollary of your position) that marketing gurus and salespeople have some kind of intuitive access to a mystical understanding of human motivation, which cannot be comprehended through rational enquiry, seems to me ridiculous.

You say that "You can never explain why people would choose one notebook over another through purely rational means." My response to this is two-fold. Firstly, to explain why people at large do something one will inevitably be appealing to universal factors that are present in at least a large majority of cases. However, individual people are... well, individual. No two people have the same set of motivations. This is not, however, to admit that motivation is in some way fundamentally mysterious and inexplicable.

I believe we can, to a greater or lesser extent, uncover the desires underpinning people's actions, and the way that rationality has guided those desires to particular behaviours. This is what reason does: it says "if this, then that"; if you desire something and there are no other factors stopping you acting, then you act to achieve that something. If I desire to respond to your argument, and there is no stronger reason or set of reasons why I should or could not respond, then I will respond. Syntax alone is meaningless (by definition), and rationality is the syntax of behavioural causation (usually, anyway): lacking semantics (desires, for example) it is powerless.

The argument Hume put forward (as I recall; it's been a little while since I last read the 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding') was that actions are reasonable only if they serve an agent's goals and desires: without reference to an agent's desires, propositions about behaviour will be meaningless. How could you explain someone purchasing a Moleskine without reference to some desire? From what you've said, I suspect (possibly incorrectly) that you subscribe to a common fallacy contrasting "rational reasons" with "emotional reasons"; hopefully I've shown that this is a misguided distinction.

[Bill]

Ben,

I think you're reading more into my responses than is there. People who are successful at selling aren't the beneficiaries of any kind of hidden knowledge, and fact what they do can be and is taught openly. It's very simple. It doesn't involve any sort of contrast between emotional reasons and rational reasons (neither of which were mentioned in what I have written).

People who buy Moleskines (or any other product where the market offers them alternatives) do so because they like them. If they don't like them, then they buy some other kind of notebook that they DO like. It's all done emotionally, not rationally.

Why are they buying a notebook in the first place? To satisfy a need of some kind. While that may seem to be a "rational" basis for the act, it is in fact emotional. There are likely many other ways they could satisfy that need, but they chose the notebook because they liked that solution better.

[IL Postino]

Kindly continue this discussion at the Moleskine GoogleGroups:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Moleskinerie/browse_frm/thread/2277a99ed6f5eb14

Thank you.