Notebook Stories

This book looks great– an entire graphic novel in facsimile notebook form: My Favorite Thing is Monsters “Set in the same 1960s Chicago where Ferris spent her youth, the book’s main character is Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old obsessed with movie monsters…. The central gimmick of the comic is that Karen is the cartoonist behind its […]

I was really excited when I heard that Stillman & Birn were expanding their product line to include softcover sketchbooks, especially when I saw that a pocket sized version was available. There are so many options out there for hardcover sketchbooks, and so many pocket notebooks, but these really fill a niche in terms of […]

You can find some amazing things in online archives. Below are some pages from a sketchbook by a botanist named Roland Thaxter, who lived from 1858-1932 (read more about him here).   The actual sketchbook is in a library at Harvard, but it is shared via The Biodiversity Heritage Library, which “works collaboratively to make […]

I’d love to see this in person– this art installation is a glowing flat circle that turns out to be made of thousands of recycled notebooks! “Commissioned by Azkuna Zentroa, Luzinterruptus crafted Denboran Zehar for the 10th anniversary of Gutun Zuria (Bilbao Internacional Literature Festival) in April 2017. In light of the anniversary, the designers […]

This looks like a lovely book, full of travel sketches and notes on flora and fauna found in uncharted places: Explorers’ Sketchbooks. “This remarkable book showcases 70 such sketchbooks, kept by intrepid men and women as they journeyed perilous and unknown environments—frozen wastelands, high mountains, barren deserts, and dense rainforests—with their senses wide open.” Available […]

Thoughts on sketchbook keeping from various artists: Allen Shaw, Berlin I SPEAK through my watercolour sketches. I often tell people, “I am the sketchbook and you are my song.” It started off with a course at NID called Environmental Perception, which required us to go into villages and sketch. I have done a permanent repeat […]

In an article at Howdesign.com , Jason Tselentis writes about the best new notebooks for designers and creatives and how to choose a notebook — but I like this photo of some old ones he’s already been using: “For the work I do and the vast amount of notes I take, a lined notebook is […]

This is a very cool notebook story. In Johannesburg, South Africa, a photographer started a community project at a shelter for former street kids. He gave them disposable cameras, taught them about photography and exhibited their work. In order to make the project sustainable and help the kids earn some income, they set up an […]

One of my other obsessions besides notebooks is art supplies. I have way too many, and I don’t use them as often as I should, but I still treat myself to new ones once in a while. And I have to say, my latest purchase is a perfect notebook companion! I’d seen this particular Winsor […]

Here’s another story about a chef that includes some photos of his notebooks. Jansen Chan started out as an architect but then became a pastry chef, and is now the director of pastry arts at the International Culinary Center. Some of his notebooks have obviously been exposed to a lot of kitchen spills and splatters! […]