moleskinerie

Plaid Notebooks

"We've been working on a couple of really cool projects to launch House of Plaid, our soon to be limited edition design goods site.

Today, we suffered a minor setback, and discovered something icky about Moleskine brand sketchbooks. We had commissioned custom linoleum block Plaid artwork, to be printed on Moleskine sketchbooks. There would only be 50 pieces of this wonderful object ever made.

As our artist put together the order with her Moleskine distributor to complete our project, she was informed that Moleskine "does not allow for the resale of customized merchandise unless approved by the manufacturer. Once approved they have their own company that you must use that does commercial printing (but not letterpress/fine art printing)".

Sucks. For us, yes - but the bigger picture is that Moleskine, possibly the coolest brand of notebooks that I've used religiously up until today - doesn't understand current art culture..."

House of Plaid

Read the full post.

Image: © 2007 Plaid

Related link: Custom and limited edition Moleskine

Parafernalia Flirt ballpoint pen

Last week I was in New York, I went to Kate's Paperie, which is a great store (they are relocating in Soho), I found one pen on display with a 50% discount POP. The original price was USD$45 for this very nice shape (like a lamp post) ballpoint pen. So I asked the staff if they had a new one, they said this one was really the last one they had and Kate's had discontinued the Parafernalia line. Because of the price and the really attractive look (to me), I could use it width my my Moleskine pocket size notebook, I finally purchased it (even though I hate ballpoints). Since Kate's couldn't find the box of this Italian pen, I asked if I could have the wooden pen stand and the sales person said "yeah of course";. So I got my a 50%-off Italy-made pen with a wooden stand. I wish I could find a roller ball refill replacement that fits the barrel, anyway.

Patrick Ng
Visit "Scription" at VOX
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Usage Comments on City Notebooks

I've been using City Notebook since January for my business trips to several cities including London, Frankfurt, Paris and New York. I love the concept of combining note-taking, maps and travel planning in one little black book and I'm amazed by the growingly strong supporting from Moleskine City web site. However, I had some difficulties with City Notebooks and I'm sure many of you agree at least some points, so I made sure I travelled enough with the notebooks and here's the comments for improvement:

   1. Mental burden: City Notebook lacks a full size foldable map which would allow you to quickly locate zones/districts AND street names in one view. I had to flip back and forth from the main map to find out which page contains the more detail street maps, so in order to locate things fast, I needed to have a mental map of where the large-scale pages are, which is not relaxing at all considering all the places I needed to go in a short trip. In the beginning I did plan my trip on map (London and Paris) in very detail, but finally I relied on free maps from the airport which has far more details than City Notebook.

   2. Limited street names on map (Where am I?): I think this is the biggest problem with City Notebook. Just compare the maps with a regular or free map from the airport you'll notice a big difference. There are not enough street names on the maps! I had this problem many times: if I'm standing on a street corner trying to find out where I am, I would look at the street signs and locate corresponding streets on the map but gee, the area on the map is empty! Yup, try to find the names from the index pages, they are not there if they are not on the maps! So where am I?

   3. No street numbers: This is not a common feature on maps but since City Notebook maps are cut up into many pages, I think the feature is very useful since there is space on large-scale city center pages. For instance, I was staying in New York Holiday Inn Mid-town, which is 440 W 57th Street. The address doesn't say anything about Avenues and you know New York taxi drivers, they need to know 'W 57th where?', 440 was not enough and you couldn't hear what they mumbled. So if I knew 440 was somewhere between 9th and 10th avenue, then it would be so much easier to tell them right away after flipping though City Notebook.

   4. Unnecessary scale: The scale of the map is printed on every map, since the maps are cut up into many pages, some of the key locations really sit at the margins and the scale really blocked the view of the street maps! The scale can be printed on the maps in less intrusive ways.

Patrick Ng
Read the full critique at Moleskineart.com
LINK
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Pen-makers sue Illinois man over trade secrets

FORT MADISON, Iowa - The nib of a pen _ the part that puts ink to paper _ is at the center of lawsuit against a man whose former bosses want to keep him from selling their secrets to a Chinese pen company.

Fort Madison's Sheaffer Manufacturing Co. and BIC Corp., are suing Ted B. Sharpe, of La Harpe, Ill. The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Davenport, seeks to keep Sharpe from selling the century-old Iowa company's proprietary information, mainly the "Fountain Pen Manual."

The lawsuit said that Sharpe worked for Sheaffer as a process engineer and supervisor in charge of fountain pen nib manufacture and design from September 1974 to February 2003. That's when he was part of companywide layoffs, it said.

The pen companies claim in the lawsuit that they learned Sharpe was going to become a paid consultant for a Chinese manufacturer and provide Sheaffer's proprietary information to that company.

nwi.com

Read the full article

[Image: Pendemonium]

Untangle the city. String your friends along.

From June 1-June 17, in several retail locations throughout Manhattan there will also be MY DETOUR. Anyone visiting the installation will be allowed to draw their own map of the city-highlighting their favorite discoveries and itineraries with restaurants, galleries, museums, shops, private areas and more. Allowing diverse, densely-crowded, multi-layered, and hyper-real views of how we each individually experience New York, the maps are a unique opportunity to see our city in an entirely new way.

NEW YORK/Moleskinecity.com

LINK

The Encyclopedia of Life

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

EOL

Learn more.

[Thanks JC]

Detour NYC Preview

A select group of special guests attended a preview of DETOUR: the Moleskine City Notebook Experience on Sunday, dropping by the Art Directors Club on 29th Street to see the work of more than 70 artists a week before the exhibit’s official opening, June 1st. At the ADC gallery the guests were asked to don archival cotton gloves in order to page through moleskine notebooks featuring the work of designers and artist such as Scott Wilson, Renzo Piano, Shintaro Miyake, Steven Guarnaccia, Terence Conran and Michael Graves.

Metaphysical sculpture duality Isola & Norzi (alias Matteo Norzi and Hilario Isola) dropped by the event and mentioned how much they appreciated Tom Sachs’s work, a moleskine notebook chained shut. Director/producer Spike Jonze chaperoned Johnny Knoxville around the exhibition, stopping to chuckle at Dave Eggers‘ sketches. Photographer Caterina Nelli, who works in Rome and is just starting a residency in Tokyo, was delighted with the archival cotton gloves; by the end of the night, everybody had a pair.

The editorial staff from the Italian architecture and design glossy Abitare were on hand, asking Maria Sebregondi for the whole story on Lettera27 and its new Wiki Africa project. Valerio Berruti and ISCP founder Dennis Elliot showed up especially to see the work of the ISCP artists that Detour curator Raffaella Guidobono had chosen for the show, including Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Dylan Graham, Gabriel Lester and of course Valerio.

DETOUR/Moleskinecity.com

LINK

In Memoriam

Day is done,
gone the sun,
From the hills,
from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well,
safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep,
peaceful sleep.
May the soldier
or sailor,
God keep.
On the land
or the deep,
Safe in sleep.

Love, good night,
Must thou go,
When the day,
And the night
Need thee so?
All is well.
Speedeth all
To their rest.

TAPS
Memorial Day 2007

Image: © ABF

DETOUR Artist Profile: Girolamo Marri

Girolamo Marri was born in Rome, Italy.  Girolamo Marri currently lives and works in London, where he complains a lot about the quality of food. Graduated at BA Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins School of the Arts in 2006, he is now working between Italy and U.K. He has an Illustration Diploma from Ecole Saint Luc in Brussels. Ongoing Exhibitions include ‘Cologne Online Film Festival’ and ‘Knee-jerk’, a group show at Byam Shaw School of Art. In 2005, The Bus Stop Exhibition was a group show in bus stops on the 55 bus route 55 in London.

Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Dealer List (.pdf)

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.

They Needed to Talk

"The details are a bit sketchy now, but everyone agrees the picture was taken in Memphis, Tennessee, on a late summer night in 1973. Karen Chatham, the young woman in blue, recalls that she had been out drinking when she met up with Lesa Aldridge, the woman in red. Lesa didn't drink at the time, but both were 18, the legal age then. As the bars closed at 3 a.m., the two followed some other revelers to a friend's house nearby. In the mix was a 30-something man who had been taking pictures all night. "I always thought of Bill as just like us," Karen says today, "until years later, when I realized that he was famous."

"They Needed to Talk"
By Emily Yellin
The Smithsonian

Read the full article

That’s CUSTOMER SERVICE!

"After few days of using my Moleskine that I bought from Full Booked Gateway, I noticed that there are problems with my Moleskine specifically the defective bonding plus some crease on its pages. As soon as I discovered this, I e-mailed Moleskine right away about the problem with my Moleksine and even attached photos. Luckily, I received a reply from Laura Forno of Moleskine. She wrote in the e-mailed that she will send me a replacement notebook. So, I waited for the replacement notebook to arrive and I was hoping that it won’t get lost while its being mailed here. Dun dun dun dun. Yesterday, I was ready to go out of our house because we’ll be going to ISLAND COVE and suddenly my uncle handed me a package.

And look what’s inside! A NEW MOLESKINE fresh from Milan, ITALY! Thank you Modo & Modo for sending me a new Moleskine! Your customer service is incomparable..."

Adrian Jeric G. Peña
The Philippines

More at his blog.
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Moleskine + Gapingvoid

Just another day in the life of a Hugh MacLeod Moleskine.

Gapingvoid

Image: ©2007HM All Rights Reserved

Bill Webb's Writing Tools

Bill Webb; self-described "old guy, Buddhist agnostic, recovering drunk, birder, writer, cat lover, husband, dad, son, brother, photographer describes his tools of the trade:

It's interesting (to me) how tools seem to make a difference when I write. I'm not a person who desires a lot of stuff, generally speaking. I'm usually satisfied with minimal appurtenances, but the tools I do use, I like to be good ones. I was that way with guns, police equipment in general, and I'm still that way with personal items like knives, flashlights, wallets and the like. They don't have to be expensive, but they have to be "right."

I will search doggedly for just the right one, almost obsessively acquiring one after another of very similar items. Inevitably, at some point I seem always to settle on The One, and then my obsession with that kind of item will subside as I make it a part of my day-to-day life. Except for flashlights; I have this thing about flashlights -- but that's for another essay.

Natalie Goldberg, in her excellent book "Writing Down the Bones," suggests getting a cheap notebook and just writing whatever comes to mind -- scribbling willy-nilly with no paragraphing or other style -- until you get to The End. Then you go back and clean it up. I've done that, and it works pretty well, but I can't do it with Natalie's prescribed degree of abandon and my heart isn't really in the technique.

I need tools that suit: a well-bound book, preferably slightly smaller than a full-size notepad, preferably with cream sheets, subtly lined. In short, a book like the Moleskine notebook that I'm using to rough this out. Later, it will go to the word processor for digitizing and editing, but for now it is a very personal operation.

American Chronicles
Read the full article

Vist the author's website.

[Thanks Chris!]
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Detour Preview in NYC

More than 100 people were present at the preview of DETOUR: The Moleskine City Notebook Experience, at the Art Directors’ Club last night. Paul Morris from The Armory Show, Pilar Viladas from the NYT and Bonnie MacKay from the MoMa Store opened the event. “The most amazing show during the design week”.

DETOUR MoleskineCity New York

LINK

"Under Milk Wood"

"And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood....

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep..."

"Under Milk Wood"
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Richard Burton's brooding delivery of a Dylan Thomas classic perfectly accentuates Noam Murro's darkly beautiful new VW spot for DDB, London.

VW TVC DDB London
Directed by Noam Murro.

Watch on YouTube

[via Jason Kottke]

Dead Trees Go Online

"I'm a dyed-in-the-wool online geek, but I must admit I've had a longstanding love affair with one particular brand of dead-tree media: my ever-present Moleskine reporter's notebook. While it's not very searchable, it's extremely portable, never needs charging, doesn't break when dropped, and it has excellent handwriting recognition.

So I was happy today to learn that Moleskine offers a network of city blogs focused on cities from around the world: London, Milan, Rome, New York and Paris. I like city blogs, which tend to mix local commentary and opinion with reviews and citizen journalism...."

Amy Gahran
Read the fuull post at Poynter Online
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Featured Artist: Sam Vanallemeersch

I like to draw anything, anywhere, and at any time. I have a couple of themes (some might call them a style) I tend to repeat a lot, referring to stuff we silly humanoids do, watch or think; in my eyes anyway. There's no specific reason why I use a Moleskine, I've had sketchbooks since I was fifteen, but never this brand, so I bought it out of the blue when my girlfriend recommended one.

I used to think of them as overpriced pseudo-arty gizmo's...something I still think today haha!...but the quality of the paper is excellent and the size is great too, it fits right in my pocket, which explains why 90% of the drawings in this one were made on the train/bus or boring waiting zones.

Sam Vanallemeersch/Kolchoz
Antwerp, Belgium

View his works on FLICKR
Visit his website.

© All rights reserved.

Discussion: Using the large weekly planner

"I'm trying to revisit my organizing system, and the main thing I can't decide on is how to use a weekly planner. I'm also using a small reporter for miscellaneous to-do's, and have been using the weekly  planner for time-specific activities and weekly lists of things to do.  Weekly to-do's don't seem to work well... I'm wondering if anyone  could share how you are using your weekly planners?"

Join Tanya in this ongoing discussion @ Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups

"MY FAVOURITE MOLESKINE" Exhibit comes to Beijing

15th May, Beijing, “MY FAVOURITE MOLESKINE”, an artistic exhibition organized by Moleskine Asia and emo+, is launched first time in mainland China.

Since its Asian launch in early 2005, Moleskine has organized several exhibitions featuring the notebooks of more than 200 renowned international artists from very different fields (writers, painters, designers, musicians…), allowing audiences in Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and Tokyo a remarkable insight into the creative process.

With Moleskine expanding in China market, My Favourite Moleskine turns eyes to Chinese local creatives. Organizer of Beijing exhibition has invited renowned artists as well as young generation creatives to attend this project. Also the public can submit their own or friends’ work via http://blog.sina.com.cn/myfavouritemoleskine

All artworks are displayed in two shipping containers set outdoor at Jianwai SOHO, a trendy area in the heart of Beijing CBD. Audience can visit the exhibition free and would be allowed to flip the notebooks and discover the artists’ unique inspirations and working style.

Released by Linda

Beijing Emoplus Co.,Ltd
http://www.emo.com.cn
Beijing,China

Greetings to our friends in San Juan, Hamden, CT., Podlasie, Jakarta, Simpelveld, Tehran, Congleton, Beirut, Trappes,  Mato Grosso do Sul, El Villar, Bangalore, Caldas, Bahrain, Azor, Reykjavik,  T'ai-pei, Sapporo, Kuwait, Singapore, Panama, Bellville, Damascus, Malvern, Pleiku, Hudson, NH, Inchon, Capellen, Cairo, Medellin, Chaumont-Gistoux, Nassau, Lima and Matina.

Inspiration: Paul Poiret

Paul Poiret is best known for jettisoning the corset, thereby liberating women from the figure-distorting silhouettes that had existed in one form or another since the Renaissance. Poiret learned his trade in the 1890s, selling sketches to fashion houses and taking apprenticeships at Doucet and Worth, the leading couturiers of the time. But he was disdainful of their frothy style. "The taste for the refinements of the eighteenth century," Poiret wrote, "had led all women into a sort of deliquescence." In both Europe and the United States, Belle Epoque style was notable for the pinched, swanlike curves produced by its corsets. In this 1901 illustration, the woman looks exasperated by both her suitor and her clothes.

"The Way We Move"
How Paul Poiret freed us from the corset.
By Josh Patner

SLATE

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A Tourist in My Own City, Writing My Own Guide

Despite my recent grumblings about the paper quality of Moleskines, I’m pleased enough with the design to have a few in my current rotation. I’m embarrassed by how many notebooks I have started right now, each with its own dedicated purpose, at least vaguely. The one that I’m most intrigued by as a project is the Moleskine City Notebook for San Francisco. The idea is simple: they provide the basic ingredients of a city guide, the rest is essentially blank.

Street MapThere are sections for restaurants and events and itineraries, but this suggested layout is fairly vague, and the sections with tabs for easy reference come with labels for covering over the prefab choices with one’s own. The only parts that are specific to the cities the City Notebooks cover are the maps in the front. The San Francisco City Notebook has a Bay Area freeway map, a BART map, a City streetmap, MUNI Metro system diagram and a 16-page street index referencing the streetmaps. The City, as you can imagine, is too big to fit on one 3″ × 5″ page, or even a two-page spread. The City is therefore separated into fifteen submaps, each given a two-page spread.

Well, having a map is always handy, right? I like the idea that I can have all my location-specific information and musings and facts and things handy. I collect San Francisco trivia, so what better place to keep it? I’ve taken a few notes on restaurants and created a tabbed section for motorcycle shops so that I can keep the names of the people at those shops straight, even the ones I only meet in passing. When I was collecting the information for my recent 120 Years Ago/Sierra Street post I drew a rough map to try to get it all straight.

I don’t know how I’ll use it all, and I’m in no hurry to fill it up. I do admit that I really like this little book and I hope to have some really interesting SF-related stuff in it in the not too distant future.

Steven Scotten
Visit his blog "Monochromatic Outlook"
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Welcome
Brood XIII !

Sightings: Big Girls Don't Cry"

I think I've spotted a Moleskine in a music video.  The music video is "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie. you can see it on YouTube here.

[Thanks to Angela in Canada]

Other recent sighting:
"Criminal Minds" via surfbits

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.

 

Moleskiner.cn is 1 Year Old!

Greetings to our friends at Moleskiner.cn, the Moleskine Fan Site in China on its recent 1st Anniversary celebration.

More power to Viktor and company!

Visit Moleskiner.cn

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UNBOUND: Book Repair for Booksellers

Traditionally there have been two types of book repair books, there are those books directed at the library trade, where the end goal is to prepare the book for further intense circulation, and aesthetics take a backseat to durability. The others focus on archival preservation and restoration of books of historical or monetary value, and are primarily for the binders, conservators and repairers of the book world. This leaves booksellers wandering in the desert, with a stack of books that aren’t valuable enough to send out to a full-time professional, yet are too good to discard.

This guide is intended to help extend the usefulness of books that have already lived a rich and full life. Optional solutions are presented, as there is hardly ever only one answer to the wide range of problems abused books can present. Each solution has been found to work adequately in the appropriate circumstance.

A word about library discards: regardless of what you may have learned from the Internet, fifty percent of library discards are utter trash, another forty percent are little more than reading copies and cleaned up can serve as very nice shelf copies. The other ten percent are books that are scarce in any condition and with a little bit of careful attention can be greatly improved upon. However there are a minute number of books that should not be ‘fixed’ by the amateur. One can easily turn a good book into scrap paper. So, it is assumed that you have researched the damaged book and found it not valuable enough to demand repair by a professional. It is more work for the conservator to correct a bad repair than to just start from scratch. If the book has great monetary or sentimental value, it is probably best that it be left ‘as-is’ or restored by a professional. The author takes no responsibility for the mistakes of the user, so there.

UNBOUND: Book Repair for Booksellers

By J. Godsey
LINK

A Brief History of Cats

"...This entry was suggested by my mom who said I should give tribute to the generations of cats that our family had taken care of. Starting with "Big Eyes" to the recent generation of family cats... Enjoyed a lot creating this! "

Revcruz @FLICKR
    © All rights reserved

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Review of Moleskine City Notebooks: Prague

"The features contained within include a key map with an overall layout of the city as well as a map of the Metro system and list of stations, up to 36 pages of zone maps with an alphabetical street index, a 96-page tabbed archive, up to 76 blank pages, 32 removable tear-away sheets for exchanging info with travel companions, 3 bookmark ribbons, and 12 translucent sticky sheets to overlay onto the various maps for notes and route-tracing.

One notable thing about the text in the maps and indices is that almost all of it is in Czech. This makes a certain amount of obvious sense, as Prague is a city of Czech-speakers, but when one is trying to find the Charles Bridge or Old Town (both of which are labeled in English in many guidebooks to the city), one must go to a third party text to see what these names translate to in Czech. A few of the major landmarks are labeled in English (such as Prague Castle, the National Theatre, and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul), but one will need to either rely on a tour guide, a guidebook, or a friendly stranger to discover the many other sights the city has to offer.

The maps were all provided by Lonely Planet, and are beautifully reproduced in the notebook, but missing are any other contributions from that wonderful guidebook company. To be fair, Moleskine has marketed the City Notebooks as "The first guidebook you write yourself"; however, it would have been nice to have been given a handful of facts, especially if one is a first-time visitor the city. The tabbed archive section -- which is reserved for notes about places, recipes, bars, adventures, shopping, books, &c., and has room for blank tabs you can label yourself -- would have been ideal to place at least one tidbit of information in each category. Full price for these notebooks is US$27.95, which is a bit steep when you'll have to kick in for a regular guidebook as well..."

Review of Moleskine City Notebooks: Prague
By Jason Erik Lundberg
Read the full review at Rolf Pott's "Vagabonding"

Photo: Stefan Bauer/WIKIPEDIA

Detour Exhibit in New York

To launch the new US City Notebooks, Moleskine has given 70 blank, manually bound books to some of the most creative artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators and writers from around the world. These luminaries have been invited to fill a notebook describing their daily journeys and life experiences in a project to support Lettera 27, a non-profit organization whose mission is to defend the right to literacy and education in the world’s most deprived areas.

These 70 notebooks will be on display in Detour at the Art Directors’ Club in NYC, June 1-29, 2007. The will have a special private preview during May 20th, during the ICFF.

LINK

Join Postcrossing

The goal of this project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, almost. The main line is: if you send a postcard, you'll receive at least one back, from a random postcrosser somewhere in the world.

Why? Because, like the author, there are lots of people who like to receive stuff by mail. If you add to that, the surprise factor of receiving postcards from different places in the world that you probably never heard about, you can turn your mailbox into a little surprise box.

Postcrossing

Visit

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Discussion: Moleskine pen clip?

       

kralefski:

Hi. Looking around I've found a pen clip sold at the Scandinavian Moleskine Webshop.

You can attach it to the spine of your Moleskine and hold your pen there. It looks pretty solid, but I wondered if any of you have tried it or a similar thing.

Thanks.

Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Moleskine City Notebook DC

"For every travelller who has any taste of his own, the only useful guidebook will be the one which he himself has written." -- Aldous Huxley

When I got my Moleskine DC City Notebook a week or so ago, this quote was inscribed on the bottom of the first page. How true it is, to have a local's view of a city. So, I've begun writing my own guide to DC to give to visiting friends and family while they're out and about, and to have them fill themselves.

The notebook is sturdily bound, comes with three ribbons to mark various places (allowing one to have a map marked, as well as a spot in the guidebook and one in the blank pages, which is fairly handy. In addition, there are Color Maps of the City (with Metro stops!) and a fold out Metro Map so that you can easily get around.

Tom Bridge
Metroblogging DC

LINK

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Chocolate and Zucchini : The Book

Moleskinerie pal Clotilde Dusoulier's book, "Chocolate and Zucchini" is coming out today. She writes:

"Spring has sprung, the publication date of my cookbook is getting closer by the minute, and my book tour, too, although I can't think too much about it because I have so many things to get done before I leave (buy new dress, write new book), it is making my head spin..."

More at her blog.

Anatomy of a System for Getting Things Done

I have followed the path of David Allan's Getting Things Done  for nearly a year now and, as disturbingly nerdy as it sounds, it has changed my life. I find myself handling more projects, gaining more free time, and reducing stress all at the same time. I can focus on the things that are important to me and eliminate the things that are not important.

Merlin Mann gave a quote on Leo Laporte's The Tech Guy show a couple of weeks ago that I liked a lot. It was along the lines of "Nerds like anything that makes them feel like a computer." That statement goes a long ways to identifying that strange behavior I see in a lot of guys for tweaking and screwing with technical things like cards, computers, golf clubs, and fountain pens.

In this regard I find myself with too much idle time gained by a streamlined GTD process and a sudden desire to tweak it.

For the past six months or so I have used a Franklin Covey 5x8 binder with some custom GTD-style loose leaf pages. A pocket Moleskine acted as my primary inbox or "Ubiquitous Capture Device", a far too complicated term for the place where you write in the random crap that hits your life almost faster than you can write it down.

The binder scaled very nicely and worked very well except for its large size. It is a hard thing to carry around. I had tried a single Moleskine-based GTD system in the past, using some of the experiences of other GTD geeks out in the interwebs. My attempts failed. Is there something easily changed that would make a pocket GTD system work?

"Anatomy of a System for Getting Things Done"
By Mike Shea

Read the full article

Image: "Kafka & Kafe" by perceptmaker
© All rights reserved

Greetings to our friends Abidjan, Kremnica, Konya, Brockton, MA., Rabat, Subashiri, Chullora, Porto Alegre, Porirua, Bogota, Mucurapo, Valladolid, Tranbjerg, City of Bristol, Tlacoquemeca, Male,     Bratislava, Chiu-lung-ku-ch'eng, KwaZulu-Natal, Korntal-Muenchingen, Sofia, Thimphu, Moscow, Al Manyal, Dhaka, Moscow, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hangzhou and Maracaibo. 

Camera from Paris

Disposable camera that contains 27 undeveloped souvenir shots of Paris photographed by up-and-coming artists (every camera is different.)

Uptoyoutoronto.com

[Click "Play"]

Rated M for Moleskine

Colleen Werthmann rates the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winners in her own quirky, notebook-ey way:

CRITICISM
Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly

"We love mischievous teapot-toting Bedouin food critics, but we love them even MORE when they sport a jaunty Dodgers cap! Black-shirt woman with glasses, get out of our way! 4 out of 4 Moleskines!"

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham (Ala.) News

"We'd like to investigate HIS story, given his distinguished salt-n-pepper beard and affable demeanor! Not your typical heartthrob, but like ZZ Top said, every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man. Rating: 2.75 out of 4 Moleskine notebooks."

FEATURE WRITING
Andrea Elliott of The New York Times, "An Imam in America"

"Jennifer Connelly in Blood Diamond, watch your back! This freckle-faced hottie won for her insightful portrait of "An Imam in America". And the Preppy Handbook style? Genius! 4 out of 4 Moleskines."

"Gravitas-Challenged Pulitzer Prize Winner Hottie Rundown!"

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Notebookism.com

 

Moleskine Blogs the Little Black Book

"We felt that it was important for our brand to connect with the blog world," says Fabio Rosciglione, vice-president of marketing and sales, via phone from the Milan-based office of Modo&Modo, itself owned by SG Capital, which bought it for €66 million ($89.3 million) in 2006. "This is a new kind of marketing policy and we wanted to be a part of it: These blogs are a way to connect the worldwide community to the brand through both the collection of notebooks and the Web."
A Fact of Fiction

And, as Rosciglione points out, Moleskine already had a sizable, unmonitored community of fans online. "If you Google 'Moleskine' you can see that we have more than 6 million pages," he says (it's actually 4.95 million). "We support this activity on the Web and wanted to encourage it even more with the City Notebooks, which we see as an analog version of a blog." So really, rather than ceding control, this points to an attempt by the company to take back control of its brand, or at least focus its consumers on a forum of its own creation. "We're starting to connect to all the Moleskine communities, also to authoritative city blogs in every place," adds Rosciglione.

It's not the first time that Moleskine has come up with a creative marketing strategy. In fact, you might argue that its entire existence is based on a blend of truth and creativity. "Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin," says the pull-out blurb inserted into the back of every notebook.

But while the wording carefully asserts that the company was "brought back" by a small Milanese publisher in 1998, the current notebooks are really in no way connected to those printed way back when by the small French bookbinders..."

Moleskine Blogs the Little Black Book
By Helen Walters
Businessweek.com

Comment here or at the article.

[Thanks Joyce and Chris] 

DETOUR Artist Profile: Joachim Robert

Joachim Robert is a French artist. He studied New media at the Ecole de Communication Visuelle of Aquitaine. You can see more of his works and projects at http://joachimesque.com/ and at http://www.boingboing.net .

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Dealer List (.pdf)

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.

THE DEAD AND THE DIARY

Lately, Sean Phillips has been drawing hordes of hungry super powered zombies and if you visit your local comic shop you'll certainly see that, but you'll also get a chance to see a wider variety of the critically acclaimed artist's work. CBR News spoke with Phillips about his two books that hit stores today: "Marvel Zombies: Dead Days," a one-shot prequel written by Robert Kirkman that shows the outbreak of the zombie plague in Marvel's Zombieverse and "Intersections," a collaborative art book Phillips created with Duncan Fegredo published by Image Comics....

"Intersections," Phillips's art book, is another project he worked on in between drawing issues of "Criminal." "Duncan Fegredo and I had too much to drink and thought a book of all new paintings and drawings would be a good idea," Phillips explained. "Originally we were going to self publish a glorified Con sketchbook, but then Image kindly stepped up and offered to publish it for us.

"The idea behind the book was to do something different to our day jobs drawing comics," Phillips continued. "It started when I mailed Duncan a new Moleskine hardcover sketchbook. It was blank apart from a title page I'd collaged together. The idea was for him to draw something on the next spread and send it back to me. I'd then draw something inspired by his previous drawing and so on throughout the book. The book is also a visual diary. Some spreads relate to what was going on at the time. If I had the book with me when I did a life drawing class for example, I'd do a painting from life in the book. There's a spread about Duncan moving house and one when my wife got a new car and stuff like that. The whole printed version of the book is a facsimile of the actual sketchbook. We've printed it so you can see the ragged edges of the sketchbook including things stuck into the sketchbook poking out at the sides. The limited edition hardcover is bound in foil stamped black leatherette to mimic the actual sketchbook. We wanted to make something as close to the object of the original book as we could."

Read the full post at Comic Book Resources

[Thanks Chris and Lianne Burwell]

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Notebookism.com

Moleskine Spotted In Heroes

"I just wanna let you know that I was watching Heroes episode 21 last night and saw a Moleskine. It was used by Peter Petrelli to sketch the future!"

Bee Dasri
Malaysia

Also reported earlier by Jon Nall. Thanks guys!

14th World Wide SketchCrawl on May 19

CALLING ALL ARTISTS!
WHAT: 14th World Wide SketchCrawl, drawing marathon/fund-raiser for Emergency
WHO: Artists of all ages and skill levels
WHEN: Saturday May 19, 2007
WHERE: Around the globe
INFO: Free registration and location information at www.sketchcrawl.com/forum
CONTACT: Enrico Casarosa, casarosa@gmail,com, phone(415)317-2731

All artists, whether they be professionals or just habitual doodlers, are invited to participate in the 14th World Wide SketchCrawl May 19, 2007. While the event is free, participants will be encouraged through their art to raise money for Emergency, a nonprofit international organization based in Italy that provides free medical care to civilian victims of war, landmines and poverty.

SketchCrawl was created to enable people worldwide to share their passion for drawing, says founder Enrico Casarosa. But, he adds, “I believe there's a second thing we should do through SketchCrawl, and that is giving. There is no better reason to come together as a global drawing community than to give. Together, we can raise awareness and money -- with our drawings -- for this worthy and peaceful cause.”

So, dust off that old sketchbook or peel off the wrapper from that nice, new Moleskine. The next SketchCrawl is sure to be around the corner -- your corner -- soon!

WHAT IS SKETCHCRAWL?
SketchCrawl was founded in 2004 in San Francisco as a marathon for the sketch artist. Artists are encouraged to slow down, watch the world around them, and record it through nonstop drawing or writing – whether it be for 20 minutes or eight hours. The event is free, and no skill level is required. More than a dozen events have been held worldwide, with XX artists participating from Singapore to San Diego. In 2006, a SketchCrawl event raised nearly $2,000 for the Pakistani earthquake relief effort.

HOW IT WORKS
Artists can work alone or in groups. Some groups are already established in some cities, including San Francisco. After finding inspiration from their chosen locations, artists share their day’s sketches and other artwork online at Flickr.com and www.SketchCrawl.com. The collaborative spirit of the event brings artists together by sharing views of places and details from all corners of the world. To help raise money for Emergency, artists participating in the 14th SketchCrawl will be encouraged to seek sponsorships of either $1, $5 or $10 per drawing. They also will be invited to donate their work for an online auction, proceeds of which would go to Emergency.

Pen and paper trump tech

"Silicon Valley forecaster Paul Saffo has been tracking electronic bill-paying since 1985. He's advised some of the world's largest banks and financial centers on e-banking.

But the man who is the ultimate "early adopter," who tests out virtually every new high-tech gadget before it's released to the public, uses cash over a debit card, still writes a lot of paper checks, keeps a handwritten journal and prefers to consult a paper calendar over his PDA.

Sometimes it's just easier that way.

"I don't trust the security of the debit card system," he says. "And I like the anonymity of cash. It's not that I'm doing anything illegal. But cash serves my purpose. It matches my style."

Despite all this, not to mention his recent rediscovery of the wonders of Rapidograph pens -- the mainstay for designers before hand-drawing was supplanted by computers -- Saffo is hardly a refusenik in the high-tech revolution."

Pen and paper trump tech
In a world of impersonal gadgets, techies are turning to tactile pleasures

By MEG MCCONAHEY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Read the full article

Image: ABF

Collages on Moleskines

meagensphotos says:

Does anyone do collages in their moleskines and if so how does the moleskine hold up to it.

I did my first two collages in my sketchbook and the spine of the book didnt look like it could hold much when it comes to collages.

Thanks!

Join this discussion at Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Image: ""You're consummate"
By Akilea @ FLICKR
© All rights reserved 

From Greensburg, Kansas

Don Murphy, who works for J.M. O'Connor, Inc. emailed this photo of the devastation at Greensburg, KS.

"I was working in Greensburg Saturday afternoon doing damage assessment.  My moleskine holds notes from the day.  This picture sums up a great deal about the damage and the people involved, as well as their outlook."

The 8th Moleskine Asian City Notebook

Over in Asia, they're already betting on the next Moleskine CityNotebook.

The 8th Moleskine Asian City Notebook: Kyoto or Bangkok?

By 广善 Bojia Lü
Moleskiner.cn

Birthday card for a Moleskine addict

Birthday card for a Moleskine fan? Emma Reid came up with this

"My brother loves Moleskine notebooks as much as I do, so when the time came to make his birthday card this year I couldn’t resist making this Moleskine card, complete with elastic closure, bookmark, pocket, and with the word “Moleskine” embossed on the back. Now I realise why I kept all those coloured paper bands rather than throwing them away!

The only problem is – how do I outdo this idea for next year’s card?!

More at Emma's blog, "Emuse"

© All Rights Reserved ER

Mandy Moore and her Moleskine

"She cowrote every song on the album—and not in the sense that she showed up in a studio, changed an "ooh" to an "ahh" on some producer's verse, then slapped her name on it. "It was 50/50 or more on her end with me," says Rachael Yamagata, the indie troubadour of heartbreak, about the songs she wrote with Moore. "Mandy's not trying to be a singer-songwriter. She is a singer-songwriter." Moore spilled her guts into a Moleskine notebook. (Getting your heart stomped on by a schnozzy TV actor would seem to lend itself to journaling.) Then, in modest kitchens, home studios, and hotel rooms with some respected but little-known artists, converted those feeling into songs..."

Mandy More: Goodbye to all that
Elle Magazine
Story by Andrew Goldman. Photography by Gilles Bensimon

DETOUR: The Moleskine City Notebook Experience in NEW YORK

To launch its new U.S. City Notebooks, Moleskine has given 70 blank books to some of the world's most creative artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators, and writers connected to New York to fill up with their daily journeys and life experiences. These notebooks will be on display at the ADC Gallery, with a special preview on May 20, during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. The project will support Lettera 27, a non-profit organization whose mission is to defend the right to literacy and education in the world's most deprived areas.

In conjunction with the project, Moleskinecity.com is a new blog dedicated to the city, its travelers, its residents, and independent and free-thinking people. There are blogs for each Moleskine City Notebook city, and each city blog features updates, curiosities, traveller experiences, and links to other blogs and communities. Please visit Moleskinecity.com to share your personal points of view, exchange information, discover your urban path, your interests, your itinerary, and become part of the U.S. DETOUR experience in New York.

Art Directors Club Gallery (ADC)
106 W 29th St

LINK

[via Chelsea Art Galleries]

Sighting on Studio 60

"...watching Studio 60 and noticed the journalist character writing about the show carrying one around. Huzzahs."

Alex Wilkins

Official Studio 60 Site/NBC

Update:

Another sighting reported by Jon Nall and Bee Basri in Malaysia:

"Heroes episode 21 last night and saw a Moleskine. It was used by Peter Petrelli to sketch the future!" 

Greetings to our friends in Takatsu-ku, Pahrump, NV., Oliver, BC., Puebla, Au Tau, Talsi, Madrid, Dublin, Jakarta, Erbil, Boulogne-Billancourt, Taguatinga, Sudan, Mumbai, Culiculi, Igbobi, Leixlip, Providence, RI, Montevideo, Aquila, Ash Shu`aybah,     Kollumerzwaag, Antwerpen, Olsztyn, Sofia, Ap Long Phu, Hagatna, Costa Rica, Oranjestad and Kenya.

DETOUR Artist Profile: Egon Lastad

Egon Lastad was born in 1979 and he studied graphic design at the University College for the Creative Arts at Epsom from 2003 to 2006. Entered the D&AD Global Student Awards 2006 in the category Graphic Design, Environmental Poetry, and was published in the D&AD Global Student Awards, 2006 Student Annual. Published in Digit "New Blood 2006 D&AD Graduate Showcase Special Edition" (No 102, July, 2006). He works in the fields of pictogram design, font design and logo design in the company Quack. He lives in Oslo, Norway. E-mail egon@quack.no

Play Video

Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Dealer List (.pdf)

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal,