Happy Halloween!
"The Artist Formerly Known As Prince...with his mom."
10th Annual North Halsted Street Halloween Parade
10.31.06
Chicago, Illinois
© ABF
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« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »
How to do Gravestone Rubbings
- Make sure the stone is clean and completely dry. Tape will not adhere to a wet stone, and the dampness will make the paper fragile and liable to tear. Besides ruining any chance of a rubbing, this may cause you to accidentally damage the stone with your rubbing material.
- Cut a piece of your paper or other rubbing material to a size slightly larger than the stone. If possible, write any information on or about the stone, inscription, date, location, etc. on the back of the paper before doing the rubbing so you don't smear your rubbing. Or, carry a small notebook, write the information on a page, tear out and roll up with your rubbing.
- Tape the paper to the stone. Make sure that it is secure so that it won't slide as you are rubbing and cause a blurred image, and that it covers the face of the stone completely, so that you won't get marks on it.
- If only doing lunettes, please be sure that a large enough area is covered to protect the stone.
- With your fingers, press the paper lightly against the stone. This will cause the paper to indent into the carvings, resulting in a clearer image, with less rubbing medium accidentally transferring into "blank" areas.
- Using rubbing wax, a large crayon, charcoal, or chalk, gently start to rub along the outside edges - creating a "frame" for your rubbing. Using long, even strokes following the same direction, fill in the "frame".
- Rub lightly to start with, and then apply more pressure to darken in the design if it suits you. Be very careful and gentle.
- If you used chalk for your rubbing, then carefully spray the paper with a chalk spray such as Krylon. Be very careful not to get any on the tombstone. It is best to remove the paper from the stone and lay it flat on the ground in an area away from any stones before spraying.
- When the rubbing is done, carefully remove it from the tombstone and trim the edges to suit your liking. Remove the tape from the paper, being careful not to tear the edges of the paper.
Image: waynesville K12
How To Unwrap a New Moleskine
- Unwrap the plastic
- Pull the paper sleeve from the cover
- Tuck the post card and stamps in the accordion pocket.
- Kiss the history of Moleskine pamphlet, and reflect how fortunate you are to be using a notebook favored by Hemmingway and Van Gogh
- Open the notebook, and turn to the middle, or thereabouts
- Bury your nose between the pages, rooting as closely as possible to the spine.
- Breath deeply
- Repeat Step 7 until filled with a sense of well being
From Geekmouth, now sadly 404'rd.
[Rediscovered by Just Charlie]
Magical Spaces
A Magical Space is a place that holds memories and emotional treasures. It could be any place, anywhere. On 1 July, Moleskine notebooks were passed to various members of the public and asked to express the answer to the question: “Where is your magical space? ”
31 Oct - 14 Nov at The Asylum, 22 Ann Siang Road
Singapore
Magical Spaces
Moleskine Found; Reward Required
"I found a journal, with NEXT written on the front cover, in the Apple Store, SoHo on Prince Street, Manhattan during the author reading of Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, October 16th. Moleskine brand. Loaded with creative writings, and photos in the read inside cover.
Didn’t read, just glanced through to see if I could find a contact number or email but there wasn’t any. I think it might belong to an apple store employee.
If you lost this, please contact me and state some facts about the inside so I can verify it’s you who truly lost it.
I have fallen in love with the new and beautiful Apple iPod Touch 16GB, and I would really like to have one, (it would be my first and only iPod) so I would kindly appreciate a reward in the amount of $395 USD. You can pay me via PayPal using your credit card, and pay over time. If you prefer to pay by check or money order, please inform and I can send you the address to do so..."
[via The Daily Jimmy ]
Note: This notebook is not part of any Moleskinerie project. -ABF
Man as a Bird
The sight of migrating geese reminded me of Mattias Adolfsson's recent quirky renditions of "Man as bird"
Mattias is freelance Illustrator working from Sweden.
Greetings to our friends in Owasso, OK., Oranjestad, Beijing, Warszawa, Chivasso, Nijmegen, El Moncayo, Guatemala, Utuado, Arvada, CO., Sneek, Mumbai, Cote D'Ivoire, Kluj, Bogen, Lima, Entre Rios, Muri, Honrio Bicalho, Toyonako, Hobart, Jakarta, Longe-Pointe, Chungnam, Lahore, Taoyan, Antalya, Nicosia, Dhaka, Korp and Makati.
Numbering the Moleskines?
" I love my 'skines. But I am looking for a good way to put them in order as I fill them up. It's easy enough to identify the order in which they were used, as soon as I open them, but it'd be even cooler, if there was some fantastic way of giving them a unique exterior.
My question is: What do you do? "
hisprincess says:
"put cool number stickers on the spines...
"
blowout says:
"i've either used a label maker or permanent
stickers. i've never done it on a moleskine, but i personally love engraving. i
use this and it works pretty well."
maliags says:
"im a big fan of
putting a large fun non-related sticker on the face of the cover. it helps me to
separate them just by looking at the cover and it dresses it up in a fun way."
Join the discussion @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Moleskine Laser Engraving Test
What to do with an extra Moleskine, a friend with a laser etching machine and some free time? Patrick Ng sure made good use of his resources.
I created an illustrator file and vectorized some of the images I like, made sure there were enough different types of lines and brush strokes to make comparisons. Along side with the file I gave a bunch of out dated 2007 diaries to my friend's production base and waited anxiously.
Various strengths and resolutions were tested. From 8% to 50% strength and 400dpi to 1200dpi. Basically the laser beam burned away the surface of the notebooks, in particular burn power can be specified to various brush strokes to simulate brush pressure effect. Anything below 10% on Moleskine cover creates brownish color patterns which looks like silk screen printing but the effect is too subtle. 15% strength creates much lighter brown color because the oilskin is already burned away, showing the hard paper cover beneath.
In terms of resolution, the higher is always better. However there is no optimal laser power on Moleskine because the effect varies based on the graphic design. i.e. in case of light fonts and thin strokes, less laser power, as long as it is higher than 15%, creates less depth and lighter color which brings out more of the contrast between the font/strokes and the Moleskine black cover. In case of bold fonts and large strokes or surface area of the design, it is much more difficult to create an even color impression because paper fibers are arranged less evenly than for example metal, thus density of a surface area varies and burn color varies even though the entire area is applied with the same laser strength.
More at Patrick's blog,Scription
Featured Artist:Caterina Nelli
Caterina Nelli was born in Rome and studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and at Camberwell College of Arts. She currently lives and works in both Rome and New York. Solo exhibitions include: 2006 'Premio Michetti Laboratorio Italia Fondazione Michetti', Curator Philippe Daverio; 2006 'Rome BIT Adriano Olivetti Foundation', 'Foto-Grafia International Festival of Rome', Curator Raffaella Guidobono, 2004 'Openness Gallery' Curator Paola Zampa. Group exhibitions include: 2005 Venice - 'Biennale di Venezia', curator Philippe Daverio, 2006 'Crave London'. 2007 Still Stories Archivio di Stato Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza Rome curated by Raffaella Guidobono. She has also been selected in competition for Art Films and Documentaries, Locarno Film Festival. She also took part in Detour London.
Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.
Dealer List (.pdf)
Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace, Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.
New Pilot G2s
New-ish (?) Pilot G2s. Features three sophisticated metallic color finishes, accents and retractable rolling ball and gel ink.
[Thanks Johnny for the alert]
Moleskining
Reader Glen Dresser posted an article on his writing blog on how he uses a Japanese-album Moleskine as a writing tool. While it's a format that seems more popular with visual artists than with writers, it actually proves itself to be very elegant for writing as well.
"Recently, I picked up the Moleskine Japanese Pocket Notebook. The japanese pockets are what you might call accordion folds: the entire thing can be unfolded into a single 31 page spread. I picked one up as a place to store thoughts for my next novel, and the more I use it, the more I am amazed at the elegance of this handy little book.
An excellent example of the versatility of the notebook is on the pages I use for a timeline. The timeline spans six pages, and, when I'm in transit or another situation where space is tight, I can flip between them as standard pages. But when I have room to spread it out, I can open it up to a single six-page spread roughly 21 inches long: that's a longer continuous drawing surface than you're going to get from any other style of notbook, and you could stretch it out far longer, if necessary. I've laid out similar spreads for themes, characters, and scenes, and another area set aside for maps...."
Image: © 2007 GD
Do you use both left and right sides of your moleskine?
"DO YOU USE BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES OF YOUR MOLESKINE? DO YOU USE THE FRONT AND THE BACK OF PAGES?"... I use to use every inch of mine, I'd collage on the back sides if my ink bled through. Now however I only use the right hand front sides. I think it was a chain reaction from buying the H20 color notebook ( only has one side). It's cold pressed so the lack of pages is worth it for the paper texture!"
Juan Kerr says:
I use all sides unless, like yourself, I get excessive bleed. In this
case I either paste a picture or leave it as it is.
boesgaard says:
boesgaard says:
I use both sides.
Join the discussion started by Becka Lee
Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Photo: "iPod Writing" by Simon Templar_
Moleskinerie/FLICKR
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Make Your own World
The unusual 3 dimensional form of this blackboards globe brings out our most creative streak. Educational and lots of fun for adults and children alike. Chalks are included. Made from FSC wood.
The Blackboard Globe
By Muji
Rare Moleskine
che moleman asked:
I noticed this question on another Moleskine related forum, and I don't recall if it was asked here, but I definitely would like to know what everyone's experience has been with this. What has been the hardest Moleskine to find? The only retailer/bookseller here that sells them is Barnes & Noble, and it seems they only have the absolute most basic ones, like the ruled, squared, and blank. They usually have them in both large and pocket sized, but the pocket sized ones are by far the most numerous and varied. I think the pocket sized is available in just about every format they make. The reporter is also pretty common.
But I have never seen the Van Gogh Moleskine anywhere here. Also, the pocket diary, address book, and weekly planners are mysteriously absent from B&N here in town.
Which Moleskine is the hardest for you to find?
jjtelecaster says:
The rarest must be the nolonger available volants; perhaps moleskine has tried to fill that gap with the new soft covers. I can find most (sometimes all) the line in Seville; my nearest store usually has the most common ones, although I can order some specific models ( I ordered the large watercolor).
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Moleskine Deal!
Just thought I'd share this with the folks here. I was on vacation last week in PA. While my wife was shopping for some children's clothes, I took our energetic 3 year old elsewhere. I popped into a Borders outlet next door, looking for Moleskines. They had a stand on the checkout counter. So, I begin to sort through them. Two had stickers on them showing the price of $2.99. Snatched them up - the rest were the usual $9.99. So, for US$6+, I nabbed a squared pocket and a blank reporter. Both are new to me - I've only ever had ruled before. So, they'll be going into storage until needed.
j
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
[Image: The Age]
Fabio's 2008 Calendar
Our friend Fabio (not that Fabio:) has an update on his project, all meticulously self-illustrated:
"Available the 2008 MyMoleskine.net PDF calendar.
Subscribe the MyMoleskine.net newsletter and download for free the calendar.
The MyMoleskine.net site and the calendar are personal projects by the artist Fabio Iaschi."
Three-year Genghis Khan trek ends
An Australian man has completed a three-year journey from Mongolia to Hungary, following in the footsteps of the Mongolian leader Genghis Khan.
When Tim Cope began his 10,000 km (6,200 mile) journey in June 2004 he expected it to take 18 months.
However, a stint at home when his father died and other delays meant it took more than double that.
Throughout the trek he travelled on horseback and relied on the hospitality of local people, including nomads.
He travelled with three horses at any time, one to carry him and two to carry feed and supplies and briefly, whilst in Kazakhstan, also used a camel.
He needed 13 horses in total to complete the marathon journey, though two of them - Taskonir and Ogonyok - have been with him since October 2004 when he was in Kazakhstan.
Full story at the BBC
Visit Tim's Official Website
LAGALAG Project Arrives in the Philippines
Wilfredo Pascual, an award-winning writer started "Lagalag" (Tagalog: "roam") a traveling journal project for fellow Filipinos around the world. Here's his update:
"Eight months ago, I went to the Napa Valley post office to mail two moleskine notebooks. On its first pages are my photos and stories -- the rest of the pages were blank. The notebooks were passed on among Filipinos around the world, all coming from different walks of life. They wrote their stories and shared their images on its pages. They have never met each other, but through the notebooks they have shared one amazing journey, one that is homeward bound..."
".... faithful to his Pinoy forebears’ travel itch and mystical bent, both transported to the cyber world. With lovely irony, the higher the tech and the more miles they cover, the deeper Willi and a circle of kindred spirits return to the wealth of their origins. Now that's a trip!"
- Author Sylvia Mayuga
Featured Artist:Claudia Rose
Claudia Rose, Germany: she paints and draws since her childhood. Her
preferred medium is watercolour. Instead of carrying a big sketchbook,
she uses a Moleskine Calendar and fills it with tiny watercolours. “ If
you are careful and if you don't use much water, the results are quite
well”, she states.
She has been using the Moleskine's sketch books since the year 2000,
but changed to the Daily Calendar Moleskine now because it's paper
works better with watercolours although it is thinner.
Her subjects are taken from daily life,nature in general and foreign and one's own civilization.
She gets most of her inspirations through observing people, during the
changing seasons out in the open or during travels and excursions.
She is publishing her sketches in her blog and on her FLICKR site.
© All rights reserved
Greetings to our friends in Wallgrove, NSW, Provo, UT, Oslo, Takanabe, Chongqing, Medellin, Gatineau, Meycauayan, Cluj-Napoca, Turku, Peterborough, Lagos, Argentina, Ho Chi Minh City, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Istanbul, Dhaka, Johannesburg, Selangor, Canarias, Katowice, Caracas, Bronx, NY, Oroquieta, Tel Aviv, Palermo and Casablanca.
NYC Compass Decals
Getting around New York City can sometimes be a bewildering experience. Help is on the way.
Now the city is experimenting with a new way to help people go where they want to go without wasting more steps than they have to. The city and the private business improvement district for the neighborhood around Grand Central Terminal have installed compass-shaped decals on sidewalks, right where riders emerge from heavily used subway stairwells.
The gold-on-black decals are 24 inches in diameter, larger than a large pizza but smaller than a manhole cover. They carry two kinds of information: directions for north, east, south and west, and the names of the nearest streets.
Should the first decals prove to be a hit, city officials hope they can team up with other business improvement districts and propagate the decals in other parts of the city where exiting subway riders could use a guide.
One of the decals that officials showed off yesterday is on 42nd Street near Third Avenue, outside a passageway between a Starbucks and a Foot Locker store that leads to and from the subway. It got mostly good reviews from people who noticed it as they walked by.
Surface Navigation Help for Subway Riders
By James Barron
Read the full article at The New York Times
LINK [Registration required]
The Dog Ate My Moleskine
I came across this funny post while doing site housekeeping:)
"Moleskine 2005 Planner eaten by my Dog
named Sophie Lee Ramos
While dog sitting (and house sitting) for my ex-girlfriend her Beagel, Sophie Lee, decided that my brand new 2005 Moleskine daily planner would make a better chew toy than organizer and got to work on bringing forth her artistic vision. Thanks to her, you now have the rare chance to own this collectible, which for a week, served me well and faithfully kept me on time. Included are several notes, maps and diagrams from my recent Holiday trip to Boston that at one time lived within the back pocket. The Moleskine comes complete in a brown paper lunch bag with all original pieces in addition to the above mentioned extra, except for the address book, which has wholely departed this world for the next.
The legendary notebook, as used by Van Gogh, Matisse, Hemingway and Bruce Chatwin. Incredibly popular, they have a good quality cream pages, and a handy pocket at the back, ideal for keeping loose papers. With a hard black cover, they make an ideal notebook for travelling. What was good enough for these visionaries could not stand up to a nine month old pup."
Rare Moleskine 2005 Planner
half eaten by dog
eBay Item # 6941979719
[Thanks Meg!]
[Originally posted 1.25.06]
Featured Artist: Terence Conran
Terence Conran is one of the world’s best-known designers, restaurateurs and retailers. Born in 1931, he founded the Habitat chain, which brought good, modern design within reach of the general population. After the merger of Habitat with Mothercare and the subsequent additions of Richard Shops, Heal’s, British Home Stores and Blazer, Conran created the retail group Storehouse, from which he retired in 1990. Learn more.
Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.
Dealer List (.pdf)
Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace, Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.
Barcelona and Berlin city blogs are online
The City blogs of Berlin and Barcelona are now online!
http://berlin.moleskinecity.com/
http://barcelona.moleskinecity.com/
Moleskine iPod Case
I made this case for my iPod Touch (wedding present from my new husband!!) out one of my old Moleskines. I cut a section out of the bottom for the usb cable and the headphones, and lined it with microfiber cloth. I love this case for many reasons: it was free since I made it myself out of recycled Moleskine; I love Moleskines; I can carry it around without it being extremely obvious that I have an iPod (a great feature in my city); and I can use it/hold it in my hand without getting fingerprints on the ridiculous shiny metal back that Apple still thinks is a good idea for some reason.
iPod case made from a Moleskine.
Made by Thryn
More here.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder?
Contumacy Singh posted this intriguing Moleskine entry at our FLICKR group:
"We later discovered that this person is a transsexual who runs an illegal operation injecting industrial-grade silicone into other men wishing to be women. She obviously partakes of the stuff herself."
© All rights reserved CS
Penmanship Fiesta!
A Moleskinerie friend wrote:
"i was trying to figure out why i don't 'journal' more
basically it is because my handwriting is illegible
i prefer to type.
i remembered my buddy sam's site pendemonium.com (beware office porn)
has a whole section of penmanship books.
perhaps i am not the only one who feels moleskine deprive because i can't write..."
But wait, there's more! Even bigger plethora of penmanship links at UPenn.
[Thanks Joyce]
Moleskinerie/FLICKR is now 6000-strong
Congratulations to Tiffany Frost, member # 6000 of the Moleskinerie Group @ FLICKR.
James Gurney
Illustrator James Gurney (Dinotopia series) tries a new Moleskine mini watercolor sketchbook.
"As usual, I picked a motif that was way too complex, so I was boggling my brain trying to sort it all out. I took a couple of shots in progress:
I tried to simplify things by using a limited palette: lampblack, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, vermillion, and sepia. After a quick pencil drawing, the first step was to block in the main shapes with a ½ inch Winsor & Newton series 995 flat..."
More at his blog.
Also visit his website.
© 2007 JG
Inspiration: The Power of Paper
Awesome Citroën ad reminds us that some things are still better done on paper.
Agency: H-Paris, France
Creative Director: Gilbert Scher
Art Director: Fabrice Delacourt
Copywriter: Olivier Desmettre
Director: No Brain
Moleskine Pouch - Handmade in Austria
Found these on Etsy. Looks like they're sold out though. Bummer.
The WORKING CLASS HEROES oleskine pouch is made from 3mm grey german felt (the oldest fabric known to humankind) this is a really nice sturdy felt that keeps its shape, is water repellent and looks so good on your moleskine. (moleskine not included, it's ours!)
9cm x 14cm
featuring lovely buttery soft austrian leather*.
*it doesn’t get better than this
highest quality pull up aniline cow leather dyed in a vat process with no colour coating. an extra top treatment of wax helps the leather gain character and become “distressed” looking through time and use.
[via Bubi, who was lucky enough to get one]
"My First Moleskine"
I stumbled upon my first Moleskine notebook by chance. It was a few years ago, in a Barnes and Noble on a rainy day with my Mother.
I am obsessed with notebooks and the process of writing, so upon setting foot inside any bookstore, I always head straight for the journals / blank books section. There are rarely journals that I haven't seen before or at one time, purchased.
That night there was. It was a small pocket-size notebook called a Moleskine. Both the size and history intrigued me and I found myself wanting one. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money to buy one. So, I plopped myself down in the café and started writing in what I found to be an inadequate substitute instead, while I waited for my mother to pay for her books and come over to join me.
A few minutes later, when she did join me, I looked up to see her drop a bag in front of me with a large grin on her face. I quickly opened the bag to find one of the Moleskines I had been drooling over. She had seen me looking at them and bought one for me. I was so happy.
For days, I toiled over what to keep in the small black book, wondering if I should taint it in with my own writing or keep it as a book of quotations for others' writing. After deciding on the latter, I meticulously collected quote after quote and slowly began to fill the little notebook. I carried it everywhere and continued to do so into my freshman year of college. By my sophomore year, my drive to record quotations had lessened, and I became more involved with my own writing. So, I put that first Moleskine in my desk drawer and went to the store to buy a second one for my own writing. I bought a small squared one and started writing.
That same year, my mother was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I recorded my thoughts and fears about the situation in a Moleskine. She died in September of 2004.
A
few weeks after her death, I was rummaging through my desk drawer and
stumbled upon that first Moleskine. On the last page of my scribbles, was
the last quote I had recorded in the book. It was Tennyson's "'Tis better to
have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I smiled. Then, I
grabbed my current Moleskine, opened it up and wrote about my mom, her love,
her life and how she had given me my very first Moleskine.
"My First Moleskine"
By Crystal Mohrmann
A MOLESKINE NOTES ESSAY SERIES ENTRY
Originally posted 11.4.05
Image: "Willow Charcoal Rose"
By Sacredheartarts @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Converting Moleskine into a custom weekly planner
More than a year after Mike Rohde presented this a do-it-yourself guide to converting a pocket-sized, ruled Moleskine notebook into a custom weekly planner we're still getting tips about it:
"After using the new custom planner concept for about a week, I'm appreciating the full week across two pages. I can now see how my entire week is shaping up with a single glance. I can have much more detail for each day or even each entry. With the Palm, I could see a full week, but it was either filled with very tiny type, or the type was large but clipped off, requiring additional taps to see an entry.
I like having my planner open at my desk while I work — I can glance down between tasks and be reminded of what's to come, or recall an item I need to add to the agenda. I never need to worry about the pages blinking off to save battery life. The quick "wake from sleep" mode (cover closed) is wonderful! :-)
I'm also finding a small book handy for storing small bits of information, such as a business card, a post-it note or whatever. Because the Moleskine has an elastic strap, stuff stays inside. If I'm concerned about something staying put, I can store it in the Moleskine's inside back cover pocket..."
More at Planner Hack
© 2006 Mike Rohde
Moleskine Soft Cover - First Impressions
I just got my order of Moleskine Soft Cover books from Amazon.co.uk and I wanted to share some images and first impressions. :-)
Generally the soft Moles are pretty similar compared to the hardcover ones. The paper (as far as I can tell before having used them) is exactly the same, just that they only have 192 pages. The expandable inner pocket luckily also is the one of the hardcover Moles and not
the (IMHO pretty unusable one) of the 18 month planers. The cover looks and feels exactly like the ones of the 18 month weekly planers, and also the general feel is pretty much the same.
Altogether my first impression is very positive and I'm looking forward to being able to use them, especially the new extra large version. I've been using the large Cahiers before, but never liked neither their paper (scatchy on the backside) nor their cardboard cover.
-Daniel Klein
Check out out the images here.
Visit Daniel's blog.
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Greetings to our friends in Pontivy, Aigle, Wayne, NJ, Andalucia, Emilia-Romagna, Buenos Aires, Algeria, Brisbane, Guadalajara, Machida, Adana, Waitakere, Kazakhstan, Melki, Nicosia, Singapore, Anchorage, AK, Delmas, Minato, City of Bristol, Sofia, Mauritius, Frankfurt Am Main, Uzhgorod, Libya and Ypsilanti, MI.
National Design Week
On October 15, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum will launch its first-ever National Design Week, an initiative aiming to elevate the role of design in everyday life. Centered on the museum’s National Design Awards gala, which takes place October 18, the event provides outreach to school teachers and students and partners with design organizations across the country.
Cooper-Hewitt director Paul Warwick Thompson calls National Design Week, which will be sponsored by Target, “a major platform for celebrating the best practices in design education.” During the five-day event, Cooper-Hewitt will offer free admission to all museum visitors and host a series of free public programs, including a panel with the 2006 National Design Award winners moderated by this year’s Design Mind Award winner Paola Antonelli. The museum will also present an educator open house and an after-school teen design fair with a keynote by MTV's on-air creative team. Nationwide, various design organizations and schools will host design events.
National Design Week
Moleskinerie (Part One of Three)
Friend Jonathan David Leavitt is writing a series of posts about our blog. Here's a snip:
"How did Moleskine get it's unusual name? As I understand it, it was once made in France, where it was bound with a kind of oilcloth called "moleskin," an English word for a fabric which was once made of, or at least simulates, the skin of the blind insectivorous mammal called a mole. The moleskin fabric, made mostly in England, had a short soft pile on one side, resembling the fur of the mole, and could be used for making comfortable clothes. The French, marketing their "moleskin" notebooks, added a silent E at the end to make the French pronunciation more like the English. When Italians took over the product, the kept the E, which is pronounced in Italian, resulting in the American pronunciation of the notebook's name as "mole-uh-skeen-eh". And that's what I call mine.
The animal, the mole, is called taupe in French. Taupe, by the way, is also a French word describing a color resembling the actual skin of an actual mole. My new Coffeeblog background color is almost taupe, but not quite. And I decided that I don't hate it. Put that in your Moleskine and call it Art..."
Thanks Jonathan!
More at his "Coffeeblog"
Featured Artist: Shintaro Miyake
Shintaro Miyake, born 1970 in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the shooting stars of the Japanese art scene. For his exhibitions he invents artificial characters, for which he designs costumes that he uses in his performances.
For Miyake, “To wear the character costume is expression of making portrait of myself. I feel something missing just showing a completed work”. His works are completed through his performance, and correspond thematically to the character. The drawings tend to reveal a child-like and playful way of seeing the world, especially his signature characters, with their long, thin arms and legs and elliptical heads.
Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.
Dealer List (.pdf)
Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace, Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.
75 Tips and Resources to Go from Amnesic to Elephantic
Jimmy Atkinson shares these tips for the memory-challenged:
Many people expect increasing memory loss as they age, but this memory loss can be reduced or stalled with some simple memorization techniques, physical exercise, and a reduction of stress. In fact, impaired memory has more to do with chemicals that are released in the brain when an individual suffers from chronic stress. But, you can reduce the obstacles and increase your memory capacity with the seventy-five tips and resources listed below. In fact, you can go from amnesic to elephantic within a few short weeks.
Some of the tips you may already know, but we've repeated them because they may have slipped your mind. Other tips are from recent news stories that contained information you may not have heard. The links will take you to those news items and to other resources that you can use to increase your capacity to remember anything you deem important.
Be In the Moment
1. You can't remember something if you've never learned it, so focus on learning.
2. You don't need to enroll in a college to learn - you can learn something from educational television programs, from online courses, from books, or from other individuals.
3. It only takes about eight seconds to process data through your hippocampus into the appropriate memory center, so it doesn't take long to absorb information.
4. You need to pay attention to your environment so that you can encode this information into your brain.
5. To learn how to stay in the moment, don't focus on the past or worry about the future while you're learning.
6. Don't multitask, as you create a "brain drain" when you focus on more than one activity.
Create a Learning Environment
7. Note the environments that make it easier for you to concentrate and try to replicate those environments for learning. You may be accustomed to background noise (like traffic), or you may need complete silence, depending upon the task and your learning habits.
8. To that end, it would help if you understood your learning style. Once you understand what works for you, you can create an environment that stimulates your strengths.
9. Create a learning environment at home. You can learn how to expand on those environments in articles written by professionals for teachers and their students.
10. If you plan to learn online, know what you need to own before you can begin this task successfully.
11. If you are a visual learner, make sure you have tools to create visuals that will help you retain information.
12. If you're an auditory learner, purchase a tape recorder so that you can use it to repeat instructions or information.
More at OEDB
The Art of Butch Belair
I am a freelance Photographer and CG artist. I started keeping a Moleskine sketchbook in 2005. My mother passed away and I was in a pretty bad place mentally. A friend of mine, Tommy Kane, (also an avid Moleskine guy and frequent FLICKR poster) had been burning through numerous Moleskines and suggested it as a form of relaxation. I had been using the small reporter notebooks for some time, simply to keep track of phone numbers or appointments and had always loved the quality and sturdy elegance of the books. Kane also introduced me to Danny Gregory ( of Everyday Matters fame ) so, initially I tried to do the "what's going on in my life" daily journal. I found myself spending far too much time trying to figure out what to write and eventually gravitated towards what I enjoyed most, just drawing.
Now, anytime there is a free moment, I just get in my car and drive. Once I find a place that catches my eye, I spend as much time as I can recording the place. It is my form of meditation and has become an integral part of my life. I can't say that it relates directly to what I do for a living, but I know the time spent purely observing and the feeling of relaxation I have while doing it, keeps my mind fresh, sharp and relatively sane.
I started out drawing directly with a Pitt pen. The challenge for me was to keep from laying things out in pencil first. I would try to render complicated scenes, keeping the layers of detail in my head so that the lines of background elements didn't cross those in the foreground, etc. The cleaner I kept the layers, the more satisfied I was at the end of the day. If too many elements crossed, I would force myself to do another drawing.
Lately, I have been teaching myself to paint with watercolors. Watercolor is a medium I find as frustrating as it is rewarding. The initial observation and organization I tried to cultivate in my line drawings is even more important now. I have a small travel palette with selected half pans and two or three brushes (nothing special), and I paint in the 5x8 watercolor books. I am by no means an expert, but I love the paper and the book has become a bit of a fetish item. The book itself makes me want to paint. My progress is slow, but to me that just means the process is one worthy of the effort.
B. Belair
View his works on FLICKR
Visit butchbelair.com
Moleskine notebooks at the Frankfurt Book Fair
At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Moleskine meets the public through the show of illustrated notebooks!
Through the special boxes, that is the tactile installation used for the Detour exhibitions, you can see and touch the notebooks of events that took place all around the world. You are invited to peruse the notebooks, with white cotton gloves provided to protect the artworks… francoforte2.jpgIn the boxes you can find the notebooks of Parsons The New School for Deisgn, (selected students of the Illustration Narrative course at the Parson’s fill their Moleskine City Notebooks with their personal journeys and experiences of New York City over two-month period, and donate their works to the non profit Foundation lettera27, supporting the WikiAfrica project); My Moleskine and My Favourite Moleskine (two international projects for an intimate look at the inner workings of creative minds) and Invitation au Voyage (An invitation to all travellers in Japan and Asia to design their ultimate travel journal. They describe their travels in any kind of style, through word, drawing, paintings or collages).
Moleskine Japanese Album by Cornelia
"I started to cut the Moleskine Japanese Album vertical in half at the back. I used duct tape to put it again together. Now I had enough space for my project. I embroidered with three different colors the hole pages of the album. I made a special stitch which is nice to see as in the front as in the backside of the pages. With watercolors I painted the spaces between the embroidered lines. It represents sky, hills and mountains, earth and water. With stamps, labels, rubber stamps I decorated the pages.
Also I wrote slogans in Dutch about fishes, sky, grass, birds and flowers..."
Cornelia
Den Haag (The Hague), Netherlands
View the FLICKR Photo set
© All rights reserved
Uniball pens and Moleskine
"I bought some uniball 207 pens as per advice from this community; however, I really prefer a 1.0 point. I was wondering if anyone could provide any insight on another uniball gel pen in 1.0 size, in terms of whether the ink has the same anti-check-washing properties/ longevity, etc, that make the 207 so great for moleskines and keeping a permanent journal."
foramoment
"Prior to using a moleskine, I was using your standard black and white compostion note book w/ the uniball signo 207 .5mm, however now I have been using a moleskine, I find that the ink never completely dries and
is prone to smudging/ smearing as I am thumbing through the pages of my mole. Very dissapointing, I am considering returning to the composition notebook. I have to choose between my favorite pen, or my favorite notebook. Argh !"
Travis in MN
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Nicaragua: Broc's Moleskine
I met Broc in a hostel in Leon, Nicaragua in December, 2006. He's a free spirited American, traveling the world with a backpack and a moleskine journal. Being a moleskine traveler as well, I can tell how much he cherishes his journal. He has carefully and creatively wrapped his journal in duct tape to protect the cover. He skims the pages, revisiting moments of his trip which appear to have started in Europe.
Kolby Kirk
Visit Retro Traveler at Kahunna.net
Red-headed woman with reporter's notebook
Red-Headed Woman (dir. Jack Conway, 1932) is another pre-Code film. The plot is similar to that of Baby Face: an enterprising woman (here without guidance from a Nietzsche-espousing cobbler) sleeps her way to the top in Renwood, Ohio, and then advances to points east. The screenplay is by Anita Loos, and it is said to tone down the serious elements of an earlier draft (by F. Scott Fitzgerald, from a novel by Katherine Brush). The result is engaging and odd, with Jean Harlow's Lil (Lillian Andrews, aka "Red") pursuing Chester Morris's William "Bill" Legendre, Jr., in a light sex comedy that nonetheless prefigures the stalking of Fatal Attraction.
In the above still, Lil has just begun the chase, having brought her ailing boss's mail to his house, hoping that she'll be asked to stay and "take dictation." That's one enormous stationery item Lil has brought with her. The words REPORTER'S NOTE BOOK are readable on the cover. I've flipped a cropped image from another still to make the words easier to see. Can anyone stop thinking about Jean Harlow and try to read the rest?
Michael Leddy
" Red-headed woman with reporter's notebook"
More at his blog, "Orange Crate Cart"
The Event (or, how did you trash your Moleskine?)
I wish the story could have been more heroic: a drowning child in a canal, tiny cries unheard by all others until I happened to notice, so I leap in without any other thoughts, Moleskine in my bag. Or even a more romantic
location: sitting by the Seine in Paris at a tiny café, watching the women walk by, and quietly gratified when the waiter turns his head to watch the particularly attractive woman walk in, unaware she is my wife... and he
catches his hip on my table in his turn. The coffee cup rocks in its saucer, dark liquid spreading out over my opened planner.
But no, my wife and I were sitting in McDonalds, I had just finished my daily review, and I was bouncing a rolled up napkin off the wall, trying to land it in the tray. One miss, two misses, and a grab that knocked over a large cup of iced coffee that instantly flooded the table. Black liquid rushed around and over my neatly arranged stacks of 3x5 cards, and -- horror of horrors -- my life bound in black, my Moleskine planner.
We went home and spread everything out on the bed. I used a hair drier on the planner and some of the more important documents (hand charted graphs, tickets to a recent concert I had yet to glue in). So now I sit and wait for them to dry, wondering how the rest of you have accidentally "given excess character" to your journals and planners.
Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards
http://www.cheshirehall.org/
Photo: Ed Bilodeau
© All rights reserved
Join the discussion @ Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Elastic bands - options?
Of all the things I enjoy about my Moleskines - the paper quality, the various sizes, the cover, the durability, the design and feel of a filled-in notebook in your hand, the thing I particularly like is the elastic band. I like the function and simplicity of it's design. Although it's been heavily copied (more & more it seems), I always thought it was the most distinctive feature of the Moleskine brand.
But I'm loyalty challenged. I use and have tried many types of sketchbooks. Some I really like. But the thing I always miss is my elastic band. I've tried to improvise - rubber bands (meh, not very aesthetically pleasing). I even tried stretching out a couple of those Livestrong-like big rubber bracelets (they all broke).
So, I'm wondering if any of you creative types have come across or use other types of bands for your other notebooks?
Vincent
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Photo: Ana Luisa
© All rights reserved
Greetings to our friends in Seoul, Los Angeles, CA, Bergschenhoek, Dewsbury, Lima, Qiryat Motzkin, San Salvador, Riyadh, South Africa, Venezuela, Leonding, Poitiers, Bangkok, Sevilla, Fukuoka, Saint Petersburg, Al Qahirah, Kao-hsiung, Montevideo, Moorabbin, Mapuntod, Lisgoold, Chiu-lung-ku-ch'eng, Las Palmas De Gran Canaria, Bangalore, Amman, Nicosia and Salo.
Can you still be a man with a... man bag?
This summer, it's not just you girls who'll be performing the ritual of adding your names to waiting lists for the season's It-bags.
Yes, the era of the It man bag is upon us, ushered in by Jude Law (who has been spotted, not for the first time perhaps, carrying an Alfie); Brad Pitt (Storksak Jamie); Jose Mourinho (Louis Vuitton satchel); and David Beckham (Louis Vuitton clutch).
Once, men bought shoes and bags for longevity and practicality. We loved classics - reassuringly expensive, hard-wearing, aesthetically conservative - such as Church's shoes and Pickett briefcases. Smart, but not flashy.
I've carried the same blue canvas courier bag for the past three years. It's not interesting to look at but it's functional: it holds my papers, pens, magazines, a novel and keys.
UK Daily Mail
[Thanks Leslie!]
Sighting: "House"
Featured Artist: Ginette Caron
Ginette Caron was born in Montréal in a family where her grandfather and uncle were graphic designers, her father architect, her aunts painter an theatrical costume designer. Very early she started looking at the world through their eyes. At the age of 7 she was already designing her school newspaper.
She graduated in Graphic Design at Concordia University and after 3 years working in different advertising and graphic design studios in Montréal she backpacked throughout Europe for a while where she met many famous graphic designers in their own studios. She settled in Venice where she designed a poster for the Venice Carnival and then started freelancing in Milan. …more
Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.
Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.
Dealer List (.pdf)
Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace, Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.
Send a message, Dylan-style
The young Mr. Bob Dylan is available to send any message for you, Subterranean Homesick Blues style.
[via Design Observer]
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