moleskinerie

Plane Sketchbook

"A tribute to slower, more leisurely times."
by Capt. Rizalindo S. Gigante
ValuAir, Singapore

The world's next generation of creative voices in art and writing are in you. If you're between nine and 18, get in on the Wandering Moleskine Next project: put YOU on paper in one of fifteen Moleskine journals that will soon wander the planet, one kid at a time. Write. Draw. Paint. Share your creative voice with the world - then pass it on.

Be NEXT. Pass it on.

WMPNext. The Wandering Moleskine Project for Kids.
Coming in May.
...
Go out, get a life ...and write about it! Be back on Monday!

Innovative fountain pen writes on the nanoscale

"The first practical fountain pen was invented in 1884 by Lewis Waterman. Although pens with self-contained ink reservoirs had existed for more than a hundred years before his invention, they suffered from ink leaks and other troubles. Waterman solved these problems by inventing the capillary feed which produced even ink flow. Now fountain pen history is repeating itself in the tiny world of nanoscale writing.

Researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated writing at the sub-100 nanometer molecular scale in fountain-pen fashion. They developed a novel atomic force microscope (AFM) probe chip with an integrated microfluidic system for capillary feeding of molecular ink.

Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) has been well-known for its capability of high-resolution direct writing as a bottom-up nanofabrication technique. The DPN technique exploits controlled deposition of molecules from an AFM tip to a surface. However, the need of replenishing ink whenever exhausted has been a limiting feature. Various attempts have been reported to overcome such a drawback, but none of them reached molecular patterns with features smaller than 100 nanometers.

The Nanofountain Probe (NFP) developed by Horacio D. Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering, and his colleagues employs a volcano-like dispensing tip and capillary fed solutions to enable sub-100 nanometer molecular writing. The NFP was microfabricated on a chip to be mounted on commercially available AFMs. The device consists of an on-chip reservoir, microchannels and a volcano-like dispensing tip. The microchannels are embedded in the AFM cantilevers of the chip and the volcano dispensing tip has an annular aperture to guide ink dispensing. The ink on the reservoir is driven through the microchannel via capillary action to reach the dispensing tip. At present, the smallest feature width achieved with the device is 40 nanometers..."

Physorg

[Thanks Mike Shea!]

Where Do Your Moleskines Live?

When mine aren't travelling with me, I store my journals in this makeshift "Moleskine case." It's actually a desk organizer, but I'm rather happy with the discovery that it will house my Moleskines perfectly, and with a touch of tradition. It's made of a leather-like material that matches the oil-cloth covers and is perfectly sized to  secure most collections.

I picked mine up for only $7--a bargain price for any Moleskine aficionado. It's part of the Snap-N-Store line of storage products. I contacted the manufacturer (Idea Stream Products) to see if they are available online. Sadly, they are only available in Staples stores.Neither that store nor the manufacturer sell them on the internet.

These pictures show how the case accommodates my books and how the set looks on the bookshelf over my desk. The product comes with a middle divider which I left out. The first large book is a Miquelrius journal followed by my Moleskine collection. Please forgive the glare on the pictures. I'm not much of a photographer and please note that the case isn't as shiny as it may appear. It actually looks quite good in ambient light.

It adds an enjoyable accent to my Moleskines which seem all the more special to me when displayed with care. I'd love to hear about how everyone else keeps their journals.

deadmuse

Links:
Idea Stream Products

The Most...

Photograph ©MMII Austin Burbridge. All rights reserved

". . . the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, the most magnificent, the most confounding, the most unheard-of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen, the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private til today . . . I cannot bring myself to tell you: guess what it is."

Marie de Sévigné
1626-1696. Letter to M. de Coulanges.
Letters of Mme. de Sévigné to her Daughter and Friends. 1811.

via Austin Burbridge's Sprezzatura

Birds ‘n Beer

"While browsing through my digital photo albums this weekend, I noticed a lot of attempts to capture our feathered friends doing bird-like things, which is not an easy task. As I was trying to create a montage picture during a brief trip to our island (Galveston), I inadvertently captured a nosy crow in flight. My original intention was to collect the beer, Moleskine/pen, crow sitting on the rail, a bit of ocean and palm trees, with Galveston’s scandalous Flagship Hotel as a backdrop...As serendipity would have it, the picture didn’t work as far as a collage, but to my later surprise I managed to catch the crow in mid flight. I couldn’t have done that if I tried, so it was a nice surprise when I finally got home and reviewed my shots on the big monitor."

Gary Verner
Inkmusings

José Forjaz Arquitectos

A friend recently sent us this link of stunning buildings by José Forjaz Architects. Describing each  could fill a journal. Take a look.

LINK

Prompts: Odin's Names and Titles

Aldafadr - father of men

Aldagautr Gautr of men

Aldingautr - the ancient gautr

Alfodr - father of all

Arnhofdi - eagle head Atrithi

Atrithr - attacking rider

Audun - wealth friend

Baleygr - blaze eye

Biflindi - shield shaker

Bileygr - feeble eye

Bjorn - bear Blindi, Blindr blind

Bolverker -  evil doer

Bragi - chieftain

Bruni, Brunn - the brown one Darrdr

Dorrud  - spearman

Draugadrottin - lord of the dead Farmaguth, Farmatyr cargo god

Fengr snatch Fimbultyr - mighty god

Fimbulthulr - mighty poet Fjolnir much wise

Fjolsvidr, Fjolsvinnr - much wise

Forni - ancient one

Fraridr - one who rides forth

Fundinn - the found

Viking Names
LINK

Via the inimitable Mr. Sun

A Royal Purple Moleskine

"The purple silk-covered Moleskine belongs to my #1SO (number one significant other) Barbara, aka Babz, aka The Duchess of Kensington, aka La Duchesse. I became a Moleskine fan at a conference last fall in San Francisco concerning  a lovely piece of software called Tinderbox, which I use for blogging and keeping track of all of my text and text-related images.  At the conference I found out that many advanced bloggers and programmers prefer their Moleskines to their pda's for taking quick notes on the fly. I bought one and showed it to Babz. Now Babz is not into coding or geek stuff, but she has a great color-coordinated workstation for her legacy strawberry iMac, with peripherals and desk accessories to match, so naturally she wanted a matching Moleskine. We found one on the Tinderbox website thanks to Mark Bernstein, the hypertext developer and blogging theory specialist who keeps track of the world's coolest note-taking paraphernalia and sells it for a modest profit on his website. There was not "strawberry" Moleskine, but a luscious red-violet model covered with Shantung silk. In the photo we were visiting printmaker Daniel Tierney at the magnificantly situated Headlands Center for the Arts, and Babz, who is a guide at the DiRosa art preserve in Napa, was comparing notes with Daniel."

—Jonathan David Leavitt
Visit his website.

View the original image @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR. 

Today on Journalisimo

"On April 6, 1980, though, the endless and complicated march of progress took a short break as a remarkable new technology arrived in stationery stores around the nation. It was so simple to use, even a CEO could master it. It was so perfectly designed, it didn’t require semi-annual upgrades. It was so versatile, it actually performed better than advertised. It was the Post-it Note.

Today on Journalisimo

"Weathering the Weather"

"During the spring and summer months of 1998, UCSD's Mandeville Special Collections Library was pleased to exhibit a glorious selection of early and important works on meteorology from the collection of Kenneth E. Hill (1915-2001). Already well known for his collection on early voyages to the Pacific Ocean, now part of UCSD's holdings, and for his ornithology collection, now located at Cornell University, Kenneth Hill also developed a collection on the origins of atmospheric science with the same intelligence and diligence that he brought to his earlier collecting interests.

Kenneth Hill's interest in this subject was stimulated through his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. With a collegiate background in science and mathematics, he was assigned to the "Yorktown" as a navigator. After a year, he was sent for additional training in meteorology, some of which took place with Walter Munk and H.U. Sverdrup in La Jolla at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

For more than fifty years, Kenneth Hill devoted time, talent, and resources to building significant collections of books on subjects that had great personal meaning to him--California history, Pacific voyages, ornithology, Chinese porcelains, and meteorology. He generously donated some of these collections to research libraries and has made other materials available for exhibition. "Weathering the Weather" was the first exhibition of the meteorology volumes. UCSD is honored to mount "Weathering the Weather" electronically and to include selected images from each of the volumes. We greatly appreciated Kenneth Hill's continuing interest in and commitment to the UCSD Libraries, and his generous willingness to share his collections."

L.C. Claassen
"Weathering the Weather"

LINK

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci
Master Draftsman
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

LINK

HEART OF THE SILK ROAD

"For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the golden road to Samarkand."

 

              James Elroy Flecker, Hassan, 1913.

 

"Well, we reached Samarkand without any Uzbek soms on hand, and a taxi driver offered to change with us for 175 Soms = US$1 (This is the black market rate; Official rate is 90 soms = US$1).  Although we had agreed on US$1 for the ride to Hotel Samarkand from the bus station, this chap later demanded US$3…

 

At Hotel Samarkand, we borrowed the hotel phone (for free) to ring Kutbiya Rafiewa (Address: Iskandarow Str., 38, 703012 Samarkand, Tel: [3662] 352092, 353823, 354527) who runs a homestay at her home near Guri Amir (Tamerlane, or more politically correct, Timur's Mausoleum).  Yes, she had vacancies and her sister, Aziza, brought us to the place - a traditional house with a vine-sheltered courtyard (US$8 per person, plus US$3 for an enormous dinner).  We were to spend the next few nights in a shed in the garden.  Here we were surrounded by apple trees, mulberry trees, pomegranate trees, etc, as well as an inquisitive cat and some chickens.  Best of all was this very friendly family who was always providing us with lots of tea and snacks, as well as a lively exchange of views and ideas.  We have learned so much about this beautiful country and her people as well as their aspirations, after a few late night conversations with Aziza and a few of her other English-speaking relatives..."

HEART OF THE SILK ROAD
Tan Wee Cheng's Travels in the Central Asian Republics of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan

LINK

Image: "The Great Game", Peter Hopkirk

[via Plep]

Ifs

Ifs

A most interesting site by Ellen Pronk,
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

LINK

To own or not to own?

"I’m reading a fabulous new book by Steve Leveen (owner of Levenger) called The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life. It’s a very eloquent love-letter to a life of reading, with some nice practical tips on how to squeeze more time for reading out of a hectic schedule.

Interestingly, one of his key ideas is something that is totally at odds with my prevailing philosophy of books in the past year or so. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve been purging my library of everything except those books which I have read, enjoyed, and read again; everything else has gone either to a second-hand store or to a library. My philosophy is that if I ever want to read any of those unread books that had been sitting around for years, I can borrow them from the library when the time comes, and in the mean time they might be doing someone else some good.

Leveen, though, champions the concept of a “Library of Candidates,” a collection of books you own that you hope to read some day. Note that he does not say you necessarily will read them - just that you might. And he makes some interesting points, channelling great readers like Winston Churchill to emphasize the idea that merely owning a book has psychological benefit, whether you ever read it or not..."

James Bickers
LINK

Show n' Tell

Seldom do we get a glimpse into the lives of our friends here at Moleskinerie so it was a delight to read this post about Mike Rohde's "unusual" work life: 

"I'm at the local Caribou Coffee entry early in the morning, wrapping up a brief chat between a client in Pennsylvania and a friend in Manchester UK, but that's not unusual. In fact, most of my work day is spent on design and web projects for clients and colleagues in Europe and the US, and it's been that way for nearly 7 years.

I work for MakaluMedia, an engineering, web and design services firm with offices and colleagues in Germany, Spain, Ireland, France and the USA (me). I work from my Milwaukee, Wisconsin home office, collaborating remotely with clients and colleagues around the world.

I have an unusual work life, to say the least.

Recent conversations with friends put the idea into my head to document my story and the unique work situation I operate under at MakaluMedia, because whenever I share my story with others, they're quite interested and often amazed..."

Mike Rohde
Rohdesign

[Disclosure: Mike Rohde and I are partners @ Journalisimo]

sriber

"it was the changing of the signs, that keept her going."

Susanne R. Christensen
sriber @ moleskinerie/FLICKR

© 2005 SRC

How I use my Moleskine pocket diary

"Why to use this classification system to organize my pocket personal journal? Because I want to rapidly and effectively organize my ideas. I could put my thoughts without any classification system. I could put my quotes here and there. I could put book excerpts at random. The problem with this is that if I search for something, I don't want to check every of the 300 pages before finding it. But I don't want to put as many time to organize my journal that it take to write it. It's why I adopted a lightweight version of the analog blog system...

 

... The whole aim of this is system to save time while using my journal as a personal source of knowledge. The axiom is that if I can't find the information I want; it's that I don't have the information. The personal journal concept is a way to backup and/or create the knowledge, the information; and this classification system is the way to find this knowledge, this information. The union of the two concepts is the foundation of my axiom."

Fred on Something

Erika's Travel Journal

The notebook of Rochelle Erika Sienes, 13
Lake Villa, Illinois

The world's next generation of creative voices in art and writing are in you. If you're between nine and 18, get in on the Wandering Moleskine Next project: put YOU on paper in one of fifteen Moleskine journals that will soon wander the planet, one kid at a time. Write. Draw. Paint. Share your creative voice with the world - then pass it on.

Be NEXT. Pass it on.

WMPNext. The Wandering Moleskine Project for Kids.
Coming in May.
...

Happy EARTHDay and a blessed Passover to all.
Enjoy the weekend Internet people! See you on Monday.

First Flowers

"Straight on the heels of yesterday's wildflowers, this morning the violets in my backyard are in bloom with both white and purple blossoms. The neighbor's forsythia bushes have erupted in a tentative first glimmer of yellow flowers, and the lilac in my own dooryard is covered with tiny darkening buds. Flowers, it seems, don't need a calendar to tell them what time of year it is."

Lorianne DiSabato
Hoarded Ordinaries

*Intimidation*

*Intimidation*

I open your cover
marvel at the space
an acre of white, gleams
untouched

I dip my pen towards you
then pull back, unsure
to write, or not to
question?

Should I start with a poem?
A thought, a dream?
A sketch, or something...
other?

A pencil then, softer somehow
easier to change
ones thoughts and dreams
perhaps?

Still you lie open, untouched
acres of white, virgin
I close you again
sigh.

Once more I delve in
pen held firm now
resolve stiffened again
and

Words fall from my fingers
black shapes on white
thoughts become symbols
imprisoned.

dakegra
Moleskinerie @ FLICKR
PodCast from Florn.net HERE.

Image: MattL

Text/photo used with permission

Recovering the Lost Art of Note-Taking

"I spend most of my work-life in meetings. Note-taking is a survival skill. Yet, I am surprised at how few people bother to take notes in meetings. Those who do sometimes express frustration at how ineffective the exercise seems to be. In this post, I’d like to expound on why I think you should take notes in meetings and then offer a few suggestions on how to do it better.    

1. Note-taking enables you to stay engaged. The real benefit is not what happens after the meeting but during the meeting itself. If I don’t take notes, my mind wanders. I daydream. As they say, “the lights are on, but no one is home.” However, when I take notes, I find that I stay more alert, focused, and actively involved. My contribution to the meeting is thus more likely to add value to the topic under discussion. This is why I take notes even if someone is officially taking minutes.

2. Note-taking provides a mechanism for capturing your ideas, questions, and commitments. Not everything can be resolved in the meeting. Some ideas require incubation. Questions require further research. Commitments require follow-up that cannot be done until after the meeting. Regardless, note-taking provides a way to capture the content of the meeting, so that I can processes it after the meeting..."

Michael Hyatt
Working Smart

[Thanks Brendan!]

Fake Pilot G2 Pen

"I thought it was some sort of clearance when I bought this HKD $3 fake Pilot G2 pen from a "warehouse" in Causeway Bay. The standard retail price is HKD $11. $3 is even half of what retailers get from wholeseller or distributor. You won't even notice the subtle differences if you are not holding a real one side by side..

. the pirates even printed the same barcode and model number on the sticker. It is an impressive deception unless you are trained to observe the manufacturing quality differences of sticker/barcode/plastic/ink etc. Shame! Wasted me $3 instead of saving $8."

Patrick Ng
moleskineart.com

My Moleskine

"Back in Boston, 2001, I walked into a book store looking for a replacement journal and found, well, something special. Moleskine. The black cover. Cloth bookmark. And the history. Used by Van Gogh, Matisse, Hemingway, and others. Well, I was sold. With a shelf full of full Moleskine journals later, I have been hooked ever since.

Don't get me wrong. I am a happy Mac user. However, I have never found a better or more gratifying substitute for writing my thoughts, ideas, inspirations or lists. And, I am on a quest that has not ended yet (although I sincerely hope it will), to develop an organizational system that works perfectly for me.

To my delight, I have discovered over the last couple of days a global community of Moleskine fans. It is always gratifying to know that you are not alone in a minor obsession.

Personal productivity tools impact personal effectiveness - and that certainly falls under the heading of career management in my book. So, off and on, I will be sharing a bit about how I organize myself - and more importantly, tips and tools that I pick up from others more knowledgeable than I. Of course, expect to hear more about my beloved Moleskine journal as well. Happy writing!"

Ian Christie

Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail'

"For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament."

The Independent

[via Leslie Russell]

Image: University of Michigan/Papyrus Collection

The blog is dead. Long live the blog

"...I bought one of those Moleskine notebooks a while back. You know, the really nice ones that other bloggers evangelise about. It’s sleek and sturdy and functional, the paper quality is amazing. In fact it’s so good that I haven’t been able to write in it. It’s like I’m afraid to sully it with my incoherent ramblings, as if I’m committing a sin every time I tarnish the paper with my ballpoint. It’s stupid, really. It’s just a notebook. It’s made for writing in! And it’s mine! Or it’s supposed to be, anyway. I have to make it mine, first.

Just like this weblog. It’s mine, but in a way, it isn’t. I have to make it mine. It’s time I reclaimed my space.

The blog is dead. Long live the blog."

M. Ellis Conroy

Image: nosurprises @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR Used with permission

[via LS]

Moleskinerie @ NAMTA 2005 Report III

Presentation and Future Projects

We started promptly at 2 P.M.with the Kikkerland duo’s Powerpoint product presentation. There wasn’t much said that we avid Moleskine users don’t already know except that the information was delivered in person by people whom I vaguely knew from a website and phone calls. In the marketing maelstrom of selling a hot product like Moleskine this connection finally made it all real for me.

Many journal keepers shun the spotlight and I am not an exception. By the time the presentation began the dainty butterflies in my stomach had morphed into buzzing bees. Somehow Jeroen’s (literally) soaring presence calmed me down enough to manage an acceptable orientation of our blog’s role in the Moleskine universe. Dark forces lurk yonder I suspect – the lectern’s trap door had collapsed (knocked off?) during Jeroen’s talk earlier. Conspiracists, take note. 

I later learned that this was Kikkerland’s first trade group presentation but I’d say it was a good show.  We may never win a Tony but Kikkerland did bring home the “Best New Exhibitor” award from this year’s NAMTA convention. “Moleskine was the hot, hot hottest thing at the show!” they emailed me after.

We  returned to the booth to shelve the rest of the notebooks after the meeting. This was the “Izzy” part, a "move" we named after a blogger who confessed to arranging Moleskine notebooks whenever he sees them in disarray at Borders. This was the first time I’ve actually seen their whole product line and it was dazzling. The array of new near-neon colored sleeves hurt my eyes but like those pricey concerts, it was a sight not to be missed.

Proposal: personal object pager

"In my case, the 'killer' functional add-on would be a little pager on the key chain, with which I could locate my phone, wallet, moleskine, PowerBook charger, and Nokia ID badge. I seldom manage to leave home without forgetting at least one of the above but oddly, I never misplace my keys (perhaps because they're always in my pocket).

Clearly, the demand for such an 'object pager' is growing. A few years back all we had to remember was the designers' holy trinity of wallet, keys, and mobile phone. But now there's also the iPod, the digital camera, and the Blackberry... people even forget their laptops: BBC News reported in 2001 that

 

"Hurried travellers have left as many as 62,000 mobiles, 2,900 laptops and 1,300 PDAs in London taxis over the past six months .... Businesses now risk losing valuable or confidential information stored on handheld devices through the carelessness of their employees."

The problem with the existing key-finders etc. out there is that the firms who are making them think they're in the gadget business. They're not: they're in the gadget personalizing business. The pagers look horrible and the fobs are totally uncool. Someone should do to the key-finder what Apple did to MP3 player: make it cool."

Zengestrom

[via LS]

Celebrate Planet Earth

"APRIL LINE-UP OF SIGNATURE PBS SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY SERIES INVESTIGATES, EXPLAINS AND CELEBRATES OUR GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT IN SALUTE TO EARTH DAY 2005

PBS science and natural history programming brings viewers the most innovative, cutting-edge discoveries taking place on and around planet Earth today. New breakthroughs in scientific research impact our lives in extraordinary ways. By taking viewers from the rainforests to the suburbs, and bringing ideas for conservation and calls to action "down to earth," PBS series and specials continue to set the standard for quality science programs that inform, enlighten and entertain.

In celebration of Earth Day 2005 - Friday, April 22 - PBS science, natural history and public affairs series will present programs and special segments throughout the month of April that bring special awareness to sustaining our global environment with emphasis on successes, challenges and concerns."

PBS

Moleskinerie @ NAMTA 2005 Report II

Product news, users’ feedback and other Moleskine trivia

The ladies had some kind of an oriental chicken salad and looked like they enjoyed it although chopstick-challenged Cindy had to use a fork. Jeroen and I had the salmon/bacon burger. Nourished in body we tackled the business at hand.

The product news is that there are no new products. Unlike high technology, journals and notebooks do not suffer from obsolescence for the most part. With the release of the reporter, it may be a while for the next new thing to emerge from Modo & Modo. Feedbacks have been mostly positive on the reporter except for the price which may keep a number of customers from using it for daily note-taking. With the volants being phased out, the cahiers will face more scrutiny as the new kid on the block. Speaking of kids, these nifty craft-covered notebooks could become the entry-level Moleskine for the youth market.

Our discussion shifted to paper after I brought up the fountain-pen and watercolor compatibility issue. My impression on Kikkerland’s stand is this: Moleskine has been using the same paper possibly since the beginning and does not have plans on changing it in the foreseeable future. They may however, come up with notebooks for specific uses such as watercolor, etc. Users have found ways of adapting their product like Russell Stutler who discovered that his daughter’s watercolor pencils worked better with his Moleskine sketchbook. As Laura Kellner would have it, “I am an artist; I use anything that’s around”.

GAO QIPEI

"A Manchu by birth, Gao Qipei was one of the few foreigners in the Qing period able not only to absorb Chinese culture but to gain a measure of respect from other Chinese painters for his accomplishments. Gao found the new expansive, individualistic style that had emerged around the Jiangnan region in the second half of the seventeenth century especially congenial, and by exploiting a special technique of painting that employed the fingers and fingernails in place of the brush, he won widespread recognition for his highly expressive works of art."

Gao Qipei
The Johnson Museum
Cornell University

LINK

Bad Web Store! No Sale For You!

"...the path to purchasing a Moleskine was not as simple. The problems begin on the Moleskine website itself. I can't tell you the number of times I failed in trying to skillfully mouseover the flyout navigational elements to find a place to purchase. I finally gave up and just clicked the root link. What dawned on me is that there was only one option under this flyout and there wasn't any need for a rollover subnavigation item. Maybe there wasn't one and that's why I failed. In fact, as I look back on the web site now, I can't access any of the text that appear to be subnavigational elements when mousing over the main links. If this is intentional, then it is very misleading. The rollover elements on the main links surely look like subnavigation to me.

Once I got to this subsection and scrolled my way down to the USA link, I was redirected to the Kikkerland web site. In viewing the top navigational choices, I selected "Stationery" as it seemed to be the only category that might be appropriate for finding the Moleskine notebook. Alas, I was wrong. I was presented with just three items, all of them bookends.

I quickly observed the "Moleskine" link at the bottom of the page and was taken to that section. Having been trained to look at the bottom of the page for important navigation, I quickly found the "Shop Online" link below the content only to be presented with three more links to web stores where I could purchase the notebook.."

EGN Strategy
Improving Costumer Experience

LINK

[via LS]

Moleskinerie @ NAMTA 2005 Report

This year’s convention of the National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) was held at Chicago’s Navy Pier along the shores of Lake Michigan. Buyers from all over the world congregate to compare notes on the latest trends and see what’s new from more than 200 booths. Among this year’s new exhibitors was Kikkerland Design, the U.S. distributor of Moleskine notebooks. We took time last Wednesday, April 13 to visit the show upon their invitation.

It was cold and rainy the day before but Wednesday dawned bright and sunny as we negotiated Lakeshore Drive in the early morning congestion. The winter 35 M.P.H. limit was gone but it seemed we were moving even slower than that. Cindy BeMent was coming in from Indiana about the same time and we planned a rendezvous once we got there. My Treo 600 was out of commission but the basic T-Mobile-issued Samsung saved the day. Kikkerland’s Laura Kellner left a message directing us to Riva for lunch.

Registration was a breeze and my misspelled badge was quickly replaced. Somehow the line of attendees reminded me of Leslie Russell’s suggestion to hold a Moleskine convention. I shivered at the thought and the icy draft from the open loading docks.

To an artist like me entering Festival Hall the booths unfinished but overflowing with paints, inks, fine papers, easels and other materiel was mildly overwhelming. Strathmore was there, Fabriano was on another corner and virgin canvasses beckoned. I spotted jewel-like J. Herbin bottles next to exotic-looking Japanese diaries. The sights and smells (the sound of brush-on-canvas came later) were intoxicating. I must have died and gone to journaler’s heaven. Finally I sighted Booth #1321 with its huge “MOLESKINE” sign. Its show time!

MY MOLESKINE EXHIBITION

"MY MOLESKINE
OFFERS AN INTIMATE LOOK AT THE INNER WORKINGS OF CREATIVE MINDS

HONG KONG – 11 APRIL 2005 -- WORKING UNIT, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE WEEKLY MAGAZINE EAST TOUCH AND PAGE ONE BOOKSTORES, HAS LAUNCHED AN ARTISTIC PROJECT CALLED MY MOLESKINE.  ITS STRAIGHTFORWARD CONCEPT IS SURE TO EVOKE SOME REMARKABLE INSIGHTS INTO THE CREATIVE PROCESS: ARTISTIC MINDS FROM VARIOUS PROFESSIONS – WRITERS, PAINTERS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS, MUSICIANS, PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ARCHITECTS – AND DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS - HONG KONG, SINGAPORE, SWEDEN AND JAPAN – WERE EACH INVITED TO CHOOSE ONE MODEL FROM THE MOLESKINE COLLECTION IN WHICH TO GIVE EXPRESSION TO THEIR OWN UNIQUE AND INDIVIDUAL PROCESS OF ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT.  WHILE EACH ARTIST WAS ENCOURAGED TO FREELY FILL HIS OR HER NOTEBOOK WITH ANY MEDIA AND CONTENT, THE NOTEBOOK’S JOURNAL-LIKE FORMAT INSPIRED NUMEROUS CONTRIBUTION OF A MORE PERSONAL NATURE.  THE ARTISTS WERE THUS ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE A MORE INTIMATE SIDE TO THEIR ARTWORKS AND IN PARTICULAR, THE EVOLUTIONARY COURSES OF THESE ARTWORKS.

 

ABOVE ALL, MY MOLESKINE FOCUSES ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS. IT IS AN EXPLORATION OF WORKS-IN-PROGRESS, RATHER THAN A CONCLUSIVE PRESENTATION OF FINAL ARTWORKS.  A JOURNEY THROUGH THE INVENTIVE TRAJECTORY, THIS EXHIBITION IS A DISCOVERY OF HOW PROJECTS EVOLVE AND WHAT INSPIRES AN ARTIST TO CHOOSE CERTAIN DIRECTIONS WHILE ABANDONING OTHERS.

Moleskine Icons for Mac

"I'm happy to announce the availability of these icons for your Mac. They are great to sit on your desktop in their largest sizes. When you drag a file and hover it, the Moleskine notebook opens up. The color of the notebook matches the opened book during the hovering. There are more designs coming up, including opened notebooks of dozens of designs. HOWEVER, I don't know how to compress the icons files for you to download, coz I don't have dropstuff to make sit files. Any suggestions on how to do that? "

Patrick Ng
moleskineart.com
...
Update: 4.21.05

"In addition to the previous icons, I got permission from kind Robert
W. Fisher (http://www.sketchbob.com) to create this icon set and
distribute freely.  Any idea to create more useful icons please contact
me."

PN
...

Related link: Mac*Heart"Mollie?

Mo' Moleskine

"Stacked"

Boxes of notebooks waiting to be displayed just before opening day at NAMTA 2005.
And you thought Pamela Anderson was sexy.

"Notes and Outlines"

Kikkerland Design's Jeroen Kuiper is silhouetted against the projection screen as he speaks at the Moleskine presentation.

"Order of the Black Garter"

A line of notebooks await inspection at Booth #1321.

"High Numbers"

A worker puts finishing touches on the show's banners high atop Navy Pier's cavernous Festival Hall.

"Heady Metal"

Detail of the sleek spray-painted display cases which feature spacers and bookends with asterisks, commas and other graphic symbols..

"Eye-romatherapy"

The updated citrus-colored sleeves are an eye-popping, purchase-inducing color combination.

All Images © 2005 ABF
...

Birthday greetings to our friends at Moleskinerie/ORKUT:
Norman Nimer,  April 15
Michael Douglas-Llyr, April 20

Have a nice weekend everyone! Full NAMTA report on Monday.

Moleskine Cahier

"I just got my order from Mojo London which includes a new large ruled Moleskine for work, and a pack of the new Moleskine Cahiers.

The classic large ruled Moleskine is what I expected. However, I was disappointed at the Cahiers. I thought these might be Volants with pockets in them. My boss took a look and went "These aren't Moleskine... They're cardboard!" And he's right.

The Volants had the cover like the standard Moleskines, stiched sets of pages which were then glued together. Cahiers are just a bunch of pages stitched together once (and showing on the spine) wrapped in cardboard. There is not even a "if lost, then return" page in the front. The so-called pocket is a cardboard corner.

If Moleskine think they are replacing the Volants with these, then they have taken a massive step back. I recommend that you do not buy these. Snap up any Volants remaining, but stay away from the Cahiers."

Jon Lim
Snowblink

Moleskinerie @ NAMTA 2005

Moleskinerie.com's Armand Frasco (light coat) with Laura Kellner, Jeroen Kuiper and Cindy BeMent at the Kikkerland booth before the opening.

Moleskinerie was privileged to visit this year's NAMTA (National Art Materials Trade Association) show at Chicago's Navy Pier a day before it officially opened and exhibitors were still setting up. Apart from the slight disappointment of not seeing the fully prepped up booths, our trip was worth every second if only for the chance of finally meeting representatives of Moleskine's U.S. distributor, Kikkerland Design.    

Over lunch we discussed the product line and comments from our readers regarding paper quality and distribution. We also talked about exciting future projects such as a coffee table book and WMPNext, the kids' version of the Wandering Moleskine Project which will be launched by Cindy BeMent next month.    

Moleskine everywhere!

The upside of coming in too early for a trade show? You get to do an Izzy! Cindy and I lent a hand as Jeroen and Laura stacked the shelves with the complete Moleskine product line and Kikkerland's other items.

Free smells!

Laura commented that each trade show has a distinct scent from the products that are on display. This time it is paints, watercolors, pencils, markers and the irresistible olfactory delight of fine paper.

Chicago's historic Navy Pier is worth a separate visit in itself. The lakefront playground offer  visitors more than 50 acres of parks, promenades, gardens, shops, restaurants and attractions including the Chicago Children's Museum and the Shakespeare Theater. LINK.

Detailed report and more photos soon. A special shoutout to my friends at JCrew/Pleasant Prairie: Kristine, Peyton and Karen.

Baubles and Bangles

"...I haven't done justice to the Afghan pendant. It's large, about the size of my two hands held together, palm up. An Afghan refugee woman in Pakistan must have sold it, along with the pair of bracelets just above it, two a shopkeeper in Karachi, where I bought them. They are mixed alloys of brass, and perhaps steel -- they have varied tints of gold and silver. The red insets are not stones, but lac. I don't really feel that I can carry off such a dramatic pendant, though I love it, so I use it to hold down the papers in my filing basket.

The silver bracelet on the right was given to me by a friend from Sargodha, Pakistan. She told me that the style, which has small horn-like projections on both sides of the opening, is peculiar to Sargodha. Two of the remaining three are very ordinary, cheap, with little actual silver in them. The remaining one is in the style of the Todas, a tribe of the south Indian hills, who believe (wrongly) that they are descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great."

Nancy Gandhi
Under the Fire Star

Visit her blog.

For The Love of Moleskines

"I'm a fan of intense deep dark inks. One of my current favorites is American Blue from Private Reserve. Private Reserve inks are not the fastest drying inks in the fountain pen world and on certain types of paper are prone to feathering. The Moleskine has that type of paper. My medium nibbed Lamy Safari filled with this ink put down an impressive and bold line that promptly feathered and had significant bleed through. The issue of feathering was less pronounced when using a fine nib. Another of my favorite Private Reserve colors is Lake Placid Blue which proved to have less bleed through and feathering. Parker Quink Blue-Black also had some bleed through but little feathering. The first great combination I hit upon was my Hero 331 (a Parker 51 inspired pen) and my custom blended Waterman Dark Red (Bottle of Waterman Red with some black ink to taste). The ink dried quickly and there was absolutely no bleed through. I produced similar results with a Waterman Phileas (medium nib) and Waterman Florida Blue. The rest of the Waterman colors I had on hand also worked equally well.

Next up were inks from Pelikan. My 1930's Sheaffer Balance has a fine nib and is always loaded with Pelikan Green. This combination worked very well on the paper showing no evidence of bleed through. I didn't have the same luck with the Pelikan Blue. This ink showed slight bleed through with both medium and fine nibbed pens. Finally, I tested out a couple of black inks that I have on hand. First up was the Lamy black, a weak black, that I suspected would work well; however, this ink exhibited minor bleed though because of the slightly slow drying nature of it (as did the Lamy Blue). The final black ink tested was the Noodler's Black from Nathan Tardif. This ink worked as well or better than any of the other inks tested in every pen I used. If you want the perfect black ink then you need Noodler's Black. It is a deep rich black that dries quickly on the paper (this ink would be great for lefties) and does not bleed or feather. It doesn't get any better than this.

Ed Svoboda
Read the full article at The Fountain Pen Forum

[Image: No Surprises @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR]

Sketchel

" A sketchel is a new shoulder satchel concept that houses original, one-off art on flexible canvas panels by leading international artists and designers, and amazing up and coming artists and designers too.

This makes each sketchel a unique art work, while still being a functional product, and the canvas panel is protected behind a thick, clear PVC cover. The sketchel is made of black vinyl, with metal fasteners and rivets, adjustible shoulder strap, and internal pockets.

Sketchel is something very personal, and one of a kind. It is not a mass market or mass produced product at all... but rather, the opposite of that.

No one in the world will have the same sketchel as you."

Sketchel

Rearden Metal

"Moleskine make great points about how many famous artists and writers used their notebooks.  But they didn’t use them for the creation of works of arts, or write books with them.  They used them for notes, and then processed the notes elsewhere. I think that using a notebook for dreaming and idea creation is a great idea. Then I can process the work into my palm as data for later retrieval.

Best of both worlds.  I can create and dream however I want and enjoy the process.

I can then file the information as action lists, notes, diagrams (I can even scan the pages as images and save them on the Palm’s SD card, for efficient retrieval in my personal data store."

Rearden Metal

[via LS]

Forests Forever

"Your dream forest may lie within. The forest you have entered in your dreams. An irreplaceable treasure, our children's inheritance."

Forests Forever by Fuji Film

ENTER

Neal Dench

"I've been meaning to post a page from my Moleskine for a while now. The trouble is, with it being a personal journal, most double page spreads contain at least something I'd rather not publish! This one from about six weeks ago is pretty general though, and contains a few doodles as well, which makes it a bit more interesting.

Neal Dench

"I'm a 39 year old technical writer who has been sketching and painting for fun for a couple of years now. I use my blog to share my pictures, and sometimes my thoughts, with the rest of the interweb community in the hopes that some people will get a few minutes of entertainment from them. I use a Moleskine as a personal journal. "

LINK

Giraffes? Giraffes!

"For decades, human historians have let their prejudices blind them to the facts, resulting in works of incredibly biased history. For all of human history, we are told, the decisive factors involved have been humans. Humans invent this, humans discover that, humans win the spelling bee. Well, it’s time to start replacing this biased history with the truth, a truth that will show the decisive contributions of other species.

The first salvo in this long process of factual correction is Giraffes? Giraffes! by Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, the first volume in their series, The Haggis-On-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance. In this groundbreaking text we learn that a giraffe coalition actually created the Red Sea in 4064 BC, that giraffes actually invented television in 400 AD, and that Galileo actually stole his ideas from a team of Viennese giraffe physicists. And these are only the human things! In no other book is the great Giraffe-Giant Panda War even mentioned. Humans just didn’t care.

In itself, such a stunning work of science would be a major contribution to society, but the H-O-Ws have gone further. Instead of following traditional scientific practice and presenting their results in a long, boring, and densely footnoted book published by a university press with a pretty cover but none-the-less not really read by anyone, especially those people who buy it because they saw it reviewed in the New York Times and now to look smart they feel they have to have it on their bookshelf..."

Aaron Swartz

Amazon.com

NAMTA 2005 here we come!

We wilI be attending the National Art Materials Trade Association (NAMTA) Convention and Trade Show in Chicago, IL. this Wednesday, April 13th with Jeroen Kuiper and Laura Kellner of Kikkerland Design Inc. (Moleskine's U.S. Distributor). I'll be talking about our blog in a presentation with Cindy BeMent. Watch for the series of reports on product updates and upcoming projects.

Thanks to Eric Wilcox of Magic Fish Press for my business cards.

View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg.
The List is closed as of 2.20.05. Please wait for further announcements.

Special thanks to our donors.
...
Have a nice weekend Internet people! Get out, have fun and write about it. See you on Monday.

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.

Imagine

"What the DigiMemo provides is the most natural way of working – using pen (and ink) writing on paper – but digitally recording everything you write or draw. Take the DigiMemo wherever you go and write down whatever you want, digitally storing everything you write on paper. It’s designed to bring your daily life into the digital age,” said Henry Wu, President of ACECAD.

Portable, lightweight and with storage capabilities, the DigiMemo A501 is designed as an optimum device for taking notes and form filling applications.  For mass market, it is well suited for Sales People, Consultants, Executives, Receptionists, Secretaries, Journalists, Designers, Engineers, Architects, Students, the elderly and anyone who needs to take notes or keep t