Custom-printed Moleskine notebooks | Hacker News Reader

Custom-printed Moleskine notebooks

fiftythree.com

100 pointskirillzubovsky93 comments

Am I missing something with Moleskine notebooks?

I kept a diary for two decades, going through over two dozen notebooks in the process. In graduate school I also kept lab notes for years. I used cheap notebooks. Never did I see the value of Moleskines justifying their five- to ten-times higher cost.

Am I missing something?

They only remind me of this Onion article -- http://www.theonion.com/articles/privileged-little-artiste-w...

Privileged Little Artiste Writing Something Oh-So-Precious Into His Moleskine Notebook

SAN FRANCISCO—After gently unfastening the elastic strap keeping his dearest musings safe from prying eyes, little literary artiste Evan Stansky penned a few more darling thoughts into his clothbound Moleskine notebook Wednesday. "These are much higher quality than the notebooks you find at CVS," lilted the auteur, who couldn't be bothered to use—dare it be said—a journal of lesser craftsmanship or pedigree, or one not famously used by such legendary artists as van Gogh and Hemingway. "They're a little more expensive, but I try to write on both sides so I don't go through them as quickly." At press time, the princely scribe was seen finishing his apricot jasmine tea, asking a mere mortal sitting nearby to watch his literary accoutrements, and then prancing off to the Starbucks powder room, light as a feather.

Price isn't the only thing that dictates value

yes it is

If it is then a $500 refrigerator would have the same value to an Inuit as a $500 heater.

You get no value from the free air you breathe?

Market value [0] ≠ value.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_value

One of the underlying assumption of trade is that you both (tend) to gain value in transactions. One party wants the money more than they want the item, and the other party wants the item more than they want the money. If the item was worth the same to both parties, then there'd be no reason to swap.

They're good quality notebooks. I've had a few. But you're right - at the end of the day they're just notebooks.

"They're good quality notebooks."

After having used their notebooks for a few years I can't help but feel, like the parent, that when it comes to Moleskine their popularity can be attributed more to brand recognition than quality. The paper they use is pretty substandard which causes ink to dry slower than other paper and if you use fountain pens you have to contend with considerable amounts of feathering and bleed-through. Based on experience Clairefontaine paper seems to be far superior and their notebooks make for a cheaper option if you don't need leather binding[0]. The Rhodia Webnotebooks[1] would be in the same product category as Moleskine notebooks except the former again has better quality paper.

[0] http://www.gouletpens.com/Clairefontaine_s/56.htm

[1] http://www.gouletpens.com/Rhodia_Webnotebooks_s/54.htm

P.S. I'm not affiliated with any of these manufacturers or Goulet Pens.

What's frustrating is finding the right (i.e. pleases James) combination of features. Good-quality paper, unlined, white or slightly off-white, flexible cover, fits in back pocket.

I'd heard good things about Clairefontaine, and the 1917 line in particular.

http://www.gouletpens.com/Leuchtturm1917_Jottbook_s/1324.htm

But, sadly for me, there's no option for unlined. Indeed, the dropdown for "Find by paper ruling" has no such choice.

I've been pretty happy with these: http://www.amazon.com/Pen-Ink-Notebook-5-5X3-5Ls-Blank/dp/B0...

though I have assorted other brands and forms I've been trying out.

Rhodia Webnotebooks use Clairefontaine paper so if you want blank paper you could try those. I really like the dot grid paper which I find to be a great balance between blank and regular graph paper http://rhodiapads.com/images/dotgrid2.jpg

Does Rhodia still stick their logo on every page?

I have three (all with the dot grid paper) and none of them have logos on every page, just on the cover.

If you go to the main paper page, you can filter for small notebooks (a5-a8) and for unlined (blank). Here's a link to them.

http://www.gouletpens.com/Shop_All_Notebooks_s/890.htm?searc...

Sweet. Thank you!

I bought a cheap Moleskine diary - turns out diaries can be had for very little, if you buy them in July - and I've found fountain pen ink to dry on its pages quite quickly. There's loads of bleed through - but never any smearing. So perhaps it varies by product.

Perhaps I will buy another of their diaries, I haven't decided yet, but for general note taking I much prefer something that's spiral bound. Looking at the prices (and perfect binding...) of ordinary Moleskine notebooks, I think these represent much better value: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pukka-Pad-Notebook-Wirebound-Jotta/d... (the paper is not super premium, but feels weighty enough and doesn't suffer from bleed through too much)

Not all fountain pen ink is the same. Yours probably dries faster. I'm a left-handed fountain pen user, and there's a lot of really nice ink that I can't use because it doesn't dry fast enough to keep from smearing it all over the place.

Oh my. I'm a left handed mechanical pencil user, because it's the only thing I don't smudge everywhere. Got any hints?

This page has some information and even a suggestion or two about ink. Whether its a fountain pen or a ballpoint, one tip I can give you is that a finer point will put less ink on the paper, thus it will dry faster. You might also like sharpie pens, they write pretty well, but they dry fast because its more like a marker as opposed to a ball point.

http://www.nibs.com/Left-hand%20writers.htm

I have a ton of Moleskine notebooks because I value the quality. I have 5 or so filled with class notes, another one as my design sketchbook, and another to practice my daily drawing. They stay in much better shape and for longer than almost every other cheap notebook I've ever purchased. The Moleskine pages are bound more securely, the paper is of a thicker and higher quality. I've had my sketchbook for about 2 years now. I stuff it in my backpack, fold it open, toss it on my desk, etc. It gets a lot of use and holds up really well, which is certainly not something I've seen with the FiveStar or other notebooks you can buy at Staples for $3 or less.

TL;DR - Better paper quality (that you can feel when you write) and greater durability than cheaper notebooks. That's why I've been buying them for years now.

You're not missing anything. They are overpriced, and the quality isn't anywhere near what they used to be. Moleskins are trendy, that is all.

That being said, to an extent the suitability of the paper you are using depends largely on what you are using to write with. So, in spite of the fact that they are overpriced and the paper feels cheap, they still might be one of the best options depending on what kind of pen you use.

Personally, I write with a wide variety of vintage and modern fountain pens, and Moleskins just don't seem premium enough to warrant the expense.

I agree that they overpriced, although they are of really nice quality. I personally use Muji notebooks, which have a nice paper and sturdy cover/binding while being really cheap.

Curious: what does overpriced mean?

I think he's most likely considering the worth of the material that goes into it. For ex. you can buy approx 5 pounds of HP multipurpose paper from Amazon for $6.78 with free shipping (http://www.amazon.com/HP-Multipurpose-Inkjet-Brightness-1120...), while a Moleskine weighs probably under 0.2 pounds, including the covers.

He's probably considering the fact that there are other high-end notebooks that cost the same or less, filled with paper of a much higher quality. Keep in mind that a person's personal preference will play a large role in how that person judges a paper's quality.

There's Clairefontaine, Black and Red, Rhodia, Leuchttern, and probably a dozen or so others that I'm not aware of. Some might be a little more expensive than Moleskines, but some of them are much cheaper depending on the size and model you prefer.

My Muji notebooks are $3.5 a piece for 80 white A5 pages, with a solid cardboard cover and a ring binding (which I personally like better than the "traditional" binding). A 192 page Moleskine is $13 - 50% more expensive per page, and they don't have a ring binding.

Also Muji is a Japanese brand - the paper works really well with fountain pens, which are common there. Moleskine paper does not fare as well (as fountain pens are rare in the US). Being French (one of the few remaining fountain pen heavy cultures, with Japan and Germany), I still write daily with a fountain pen and deeply enjoy it.

Oh and also I'm left handed, and thus write in my notebooks from last to first page (in western order) - since Muji is a Japanese brand, the notebooks are designed to be used in that way. That's a little detail, but I'm a little obsessive :-)

I'm left-handed too, so I'm intrigued by your note taking. So you flip through notebooks 'backwards'? How does that help with any of the problems left-handed people have with writing (eg smudges)?

It helps in that I don't have the metallic ring spine digging into my hand (I only write on the recto of the pages. I guess I could write from left to right and write on the verso, but that feels weirder). So this is what my notebook looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/SSc29KLl.jpg the page flipped over to the right being the previous page, and the page under the one visibly written on being the next page.

Sadly, I still have to be careful when I write, otherwise it is a smudge fest (especially with a fountain pen; fortunately, I had a few grade school teachers who taught me how to write with my hand positioned in a way that minimizes smudges)

Update: Just came back from Muji with quite a bit of stationery!

Agreed; Moleskins are a disaster with a fountain pen.

Your argument about which kind of writing instrument is popular in which country is very interesting, but you seem to think Moleskine is a US company? In fact they're from Italy. Not sure if that changes your reasoning, but it might be worth mentioning since you seem to not be aware of it.

Hah, TIL. Well, the fact remains that Moleskine paper fares poorly with fountain pens.

On Amazon they're $23. Am I looking at the wrong ones? Moleskine $17.

At the store in SF they're a few bucks. Not sure why they're so expensive on Amazon.

http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-paper...

I used the B5 stapled recycled paper notebooks (UK store) for some work I did in the year 2000.

The paper is a nicely aged light brown with a gradient towards the edge now.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8403291/muji-b5-2000-cro...

Snap does not show the full gradient but you get the idea. Pages flexible, no cracking or anything.

Oddly enough, the pages in the squared version of the notebook are still bright white, no sign of ageing at all.

They are just notebooks. But so far they are the only notebook I have been able to keep in my arse pocket for months on end without it falling apart. Most other notebooks start shedding pages after a few weeks of being exposed to heavy sweating in the summer, and the general wear and tear of bending every which way when you're walking and sitting down.

Moleskine handles it like a champ.

I also really like the form factor. Especially for the big soft cover moleskines. I'm not sure exactly why, but the dimensions are just perfect for me and I haven't been able to find anything else that's similar.

Artists' sketch books can take a beating as well and have thicker paper (Moleskine make sketchbooks as well of course), but sketchbooks by Daler, Rowney et al tend to be in A series sizes here in Europe and that shape is fatter than the Moleskine.

'The Alwych Book' notebooks have really thick creamy paper and heavy blue lines, and the smaller ones will fit in a pocket easily. They are your white-van driver's notebook, basically indestructible.

Both are a good percentage cheaper than Moleskines.

But at the end of the day, I pay 10 euro for 3 backpocket moleskines and it lasts me a year. That's cheap enough for me considering it works perfectly and I have never been disappointed.

Good for you. I take it those are the 'cahier' style notebooks with the stitching along the back spine and one fold? Like this...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cahier-Plain-Pocket-Journal-Brown/dp...

Yup, exactly those. See, amazon has them for 5 euro ... how anyone thinks that is super expensive I don't know.

Some people like larger notebooks. When you can get a full-sized notebook for .15 at Wal-mart, 20 bucks for an A4 Moleskin sets the expectations pretty high.

I'm not above spending 20 bucks on a notebook, I just think Moleskin's paper isn't very good, when compared to other notebooks.

Yes, but people who like "full-sized" notebooks aren't Moleskine's target market. The target market are those of us who prefer this format to the full-size.

Also I don't have Wal-mart here, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a cheap leather-bound (or fake leather, I don't know or care which Moleskine use) notebook with 190 pages that aren't pure blinding white, for 15 euro on the official site, or as low as 10 on Amazon.

Sure, there are plenty of cheap notebooks, but those usually don't have the same specs so the comparison is somewhat unjust. Hell, if you wanted to go really cheap, you'd just buy a stack of printer paper.

They make A4 sized notebooks, so yes, people who like full-sized notebooks are part of their target market.

I wasn't trying to imply that the 15 cent notebook is Moleskin's equal, I'm just saying that the availability of adequate paper sets the expectations of expensive notebooks pretty high. There are notebooks just as expensive as a Moleskin that I would pay for, because I find them to be better in quality.

Actually their large notebooks are smaller than A4 ... it's one of the main reasons I like them.

They make all kinds of notebooks, including A4.

http://www.amazon.com/Moleskine-Folio-Notebook-Professional-...

Exactly - they're my favorite to sketch and jot down ideas in and totally worth the investment in the short term.

These are pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Pen-Ink-Notebook-5-5X3-5Ls-Blank/dp/B0...

I have boxes and boxes of artist sketchbooks. They're great.

I stole the idea from a friend of mine. "I use little notebooks for little ideas, bigger ones for bigger ideas."

He added, "I have a coffee-table sized one at home that I've never written in, because I've never had an idea that big."

That said, recent redesigns by Strathmore have added a perforation to the notebooks. I am old and cranky and cannot tolerate this for some reason, and thus am searching for a new standard notebook. So far a cheap chemistry notebook carried by a local college bookstore looks good, and I may buy a big boxful if they hold up well.

Moleskines are fine, but tiny, and not large enough for doing engineering diagrams.

A local artists' materials shop would offer a range of sketchbook styles (perforated, non-perforated, bright white, cream, and various sizes and weights of paper) and probably be glad of your business if you are the type who buys a whole carton of books at once!

My old University still sells lab books with hard covers and alternate grid and lines. The grid is in green and there is a choice of 1mm/10mm or 2mm/10mm/20mm on the grid (UK). Because all the science undergrads use them the supply can be depended on.

The engineering department in the University where I took my first degree always insisted on us making sketches with a machine pencil and no ruler on plain paper, especially during lectures. Their argument was that you needed to learn to express your ideas in visual form quickly. I wasn't very good at it but stuck with it and tend to prefer plain paper now.

I trust we all back up our better pages with a phone camera or scanner?

Actually, I have found the opposite--at least as far as the grid pocket notebooks go, Moleskine paper and build quality has been inconsistent-bordering-on-bad [1]. In addition, I find dot paper superior to grid paper as it is more unobtrusive, but Moleskine has no dot configuration whatsoever in its product line.

The two notebooks I tend to rely on are the Rhodia Webnotebook and the Leuchtturm1917, which are both much higher build quality than Moleskine in every respect (although the Leuchtturm has a bit of a smearing issue with G2 pens). But if you think a Moleskine is overpriced, you are in for a rude surprise with either of those.

It does seem like there should be, out there somewhere, a cheap and high-quality engineer's pocket notebook. But if there is such a thing I have yet to find it, and I have tried probably 10 or so contenders.

[1] Other reports: http://www.notebookstories.com/2011/10/17/moleskine-monday-h...

Wouldn't know about grid. I only use blanks and I find the paper fits a G2 pen perfectly. Maybe I lucked out on combination of favourite pen and favourite notebook and also on quality consistency here in Europe (I'm actually just 500km from Milan, where the company is based).

Also I only use the soft cover ones, so maybe that affects their quality as well because soft covers are less prone to breaking and ruining the stitching.

Here's my report from a few years ago: http://swizec.com/blog/notebook-fetishism/swizec/2729

Not exactly easy to find and probably still requires reinforcing the cover, but Clairefontaine notebooks can't be best for paper quality...

Their paper is great, but I use Moleskine notebooks specifically because of the weak covers.

The notebooks I use:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/home-gift-patina-brown-drago...

It has a dragon fighting a gryphon, which makes it much cooler than the moleskines. It's $50.

On a serious note though, everybody should keep a daily journal, and a $0.99 cheapo from Wal-Mart will do the job.

I'd be interested to read reviews of notebooks and papers, written by someone who actually has a use for them. You could use referral links and put a google ad on the page for a tiny bit of passive income.

Have you tried Black n Red? (http://www.blacknred.com/) I doubt they'll have dot grid, but perhaps.

Or Field Notes? (http://fieldnotesbrand.com/) I'm not sure if Field Notes is just a fashion brand or if they're actually good.

Well, this is as good of a time as any to dump my knowledge on the subject.

I love dot grids, because each page has the potential to be either grid, ruled, or plain, depending on how seriously you take the dots. Having now gotten used to the various ways of using dotted paper, I don't think I could go back. If you are satisfied with other ruling methods, then you have many more potential vendors, but I am not.

So that leaves these contenders: leuchtturm1917, rhodia, behance, field notes, scout, dotgrid.co, whitelines, ecoqua, monsieur, and nuuna. Vendors seem to come and go, as notebooks seem to be a bit of a fly-by-night sort of business.

Behance and nuuna have that "fly by night" feel and seem difficult to get ahold of in the US (e.g. through Amazon, etc), so I have not tried them. Traditionally leuchtturm1917 has had this problem, but their US distributor seems to be straightening it out.

Scout and dotgrid.co only come in something like Moleskine's "cahier" configuration (e.g., not hard bound). These might be worth trying, but I prefer perfect-bound.

Field Notes only sells in "cahier" configuration, and their only dot grid product is on waterproof/fireproof/everythingproof paper. I hear they work well with pencil or ballpoint pen but the ink from my trusty G2s doesn't absorb well into the paper, so I will just be getting ink all over the place.

Ecoqua sells a glue-bound notebook with a soft cover and no pocket, so it isn't really Moleskine-equivalent in its featureset.

Whitelines is interesting because the lines/ruling is actually brighter than the paper itself, which scans well. However, their Black Ocean notebook is missing a pocket in the back cover, which is an important feature for me. I will probably pick one up eventually. They do have some nice pads though, including offbeat paper like isometric.

Monsieur is a weird size (not very pocket-friendly), and seems to have some supply issues.

This leaves the Leuchtturm1917 and the Rhodia. In my experience, the Leuchtturm1917 is smeary with G2 pens, but is otherwise perfect. The Rhodia's paper is perfect for the G2, but because the paperstock is so thick, the notebook feels a little thick in the pocket. I tend to alternate between these two notebooks.

I have also looked into abusing the on-demand book publishers to create notebooks, but it seems self-published hardbound pocket books are not a thing. Things like boundforanything.com get pretty close, but you're still missing core features like a ribbon, elastic, and a rear pocket.

tl;dr getting a notebook right is more difficult than it looks, rhodia and leuchtturm1917 come the closest for me.

I suspect moleskins are status items, but keep in mind that just because something is a small improvement over something else doesnt mean it can't be worth paying 10 times the price. It just requires that the price difference is less than the value difference to the individual. It can make sense to pay 100 times the price for fancy surgical screws even if they're only 2% less likely to strip than the kind you buy at Home Depot. In the end, screws and notebooks are not the cost drivers of having surgery or being a writer.

I'm going to assume you write in pen, because as someone who writes in pencil, I've had plenty of notebooks where all my writing would eventually become invisible(!)

So Moleskine definitely holds meaning to me as something associated with quality.

Yes, what you are missing is that these are notebooks printed from the contents of your digital notebook within the iPad app, "Paper". It seems less about the custom Moleskine cover and more about the physical manifestation of your digital journal.

Is it really custom if its got the 53 logo all over it?

I'm all for having a nicer looking collection of organized Moleskines (already have 10 'normal' moleskines on the shelf, easily spotted among the noise) but I abhor the idea of my 'customized' set nevertheless looking like they were published by 53.

If there's an easy way to remove all branding, I'd be into this in a heartbeat ..

I think you may not understand this product.

53 makes the Paper app and these are not custom blank Moleskine's but they are printed inside and out with what you select from the Paper app.

I think he understands quite clearly, that based on the product photos the 53 logo appears on the spines of the custom printed moleskins. It makes sense to me that one would not want such a logo, preferring the default moleskin look (or, and this would be cool: getting your own logo on the spine).

I fully understand the product, because I use the Paper app. Its currently not possible to print these custom booklets without the 53 logo on the spine. I find that distasteful, personally, which is why I raised the issue. If I could put my own logo on there (and someone please correct me if there is a way to do this) then I'd be all over this ..

Moleskine with an 'e'.

Custom Moleskin is also an interesting product, but relevant to preventing blisters on unhappy feet.

Does anyone else get envious for not having the artistic ability to make cool stuff like they show in Paper and the ads around it?

Not really. If I wanted to be a good artist, I'd take to the time to be a good artist. Until then, I have a million other things to prioritize than "draw".

Check out this thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870

MindCandyMan has been posting his artistic progress for over 10 years. Look at what he started with versus what he's produced recently.

For my last year of classes, I made something similar, though for a lower cost.

I used http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ to make a custom dot grid to accomodate my large handwriting, imported it into InDesign to create 200+ numbered pages of the grid and then added a few pages front and back of reference items. Finished up with a color cover of my own design, and then sent the resulting PDF to an online printing service, Lulu, and the resulting 8 x 10 notebook was quite nice.

It didn't have the feel of a Moleskin but the spiral binding was pretty resilient to the daily abuse, the thick cover also held up perfectly, the paper was thicker than normal notebook paper, and it was nice having a notebook which fit my writing style perfectly. Total cost per book was around $15.

I feel like the website doesn't really explain what they're offering. It's a little cryptic to me, I can see lots of beautiful artwork, but am I the only one who still doesn't understand what problem they're trying to fix or what they're offering me?

This company will stamp a logo on a moleskin-like notebook for $4.45 (min 100 quantity):

http://www.chameleonlike.com/CategoryListing.asp?catid=14

What does "Made from Paper" mean? As opposed to a book made from plastic?

No, this is referring to their app, Paper. These are notebooks printed straight from their app, using your art.

In this case "Paper" refers to the name of the app that you can order these notebooks from, Paper: http://www.fiftythree.com/paper

To assure consumers that it's not actually made of mole skin, despite the spelling in the headline.

it's a clever and cute double entendre :)

As an aside: See papers like "RockStock", "FibreStone", "Parax", etc, which are "made from stone" (80% Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) and 20% non-toxic HDPE.)

EDIT: Here's a wired article (http://www.wired.com/design/2013/02/stone-paper-notebook/)

This is my only criticism, the vernacular and wordplay on the website is sometimes confusing. Having made it through, I'm definitely interested in their product though.

Reminds me a little of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6599075

App is free. You get a fountain pen and an eraser. If you want a marker, pencil, or whatever, it is $1.99. And if you want the notebook?

Not sure what they are going for here....

So no way to upload art unless you have an ipad?

Yeah this is definitely a weakness in this whole scheme..

Hipster Biz!

Don't knock it. :)

I'm happy drawing my own stuff on plain paper and adhering it with clear packing tape. Helps protect the cover.

But that's me. Folks want to pay for this or that indulgence, I say have at it.

I'm kinda sad that even though tablets are multipurpose and go for less than $200, people still manufacture paper notebooks and books. What happened to save the environment, reuse, save the trees?

Of course, there are no adverse environmental effects from manufacturing tablets, circuit boards, etc.

In principle, they last longer than a paper notebook.

In practice...

Outside the Amazon rainforest, "save the trees" is stupid and meaningless. They haven't touched old growth forest to make paper in over a century.

My (paper) note book (a cheap $0.50 mead spiral bound model) can be thrown in my bag without any concern over it being damaged, or remembering to charge it, and it will remain functional. It has no obvious value to thieves, and leaving it lay visible in the car does not appreciably increase my risk of the car being broken into. It is also lighter, and quicker to use than any tablet I've used.

And in these days of network printers that can also scan an email a PDF back to you, backups are easy.

Given the spat of hard disk failures I've experienced in the last few months, I actually trust the paper copy to remain useable longer. Also, the lower data density of a paper note book helps mitigate the risk as well - damage to a notebook simply doesn't affect the quantity of data that the loss of a hard disk, tablet, or flash drive can affect.

Absolutely, I have notebooks going back 30 years in this room, data on disks not so much!

I scan to share and to tag and as insurance for complete loss of the 'daily book' I carry round.

First, electronics ironically last less...

Everything I have on paper I did not lost, even when it got damaged for whatever reason (like a flooding...)

But I already lost lots of electronic data (specially with some bad flukes, like dropping a backup HD on the ground, and then figuring the original broke down too for some reason)

And lots of electronics.

Also finally, using paper to write in the bus or metro here in Brazil does not make people point guns at your head, while using electronics does. (I am not kidding, I got robbed at gunpoint a couple times)

Don't waste your time being sad about this. Paper products will exist approx. forever, long after either of us is dead. If you watch the video, the book is actually a work of art. It's not like people printing 10 copies of TPS reports that nobody will read, just to file in a filing cabinet.

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