Hi all,
Could someone please tell me why everyone seems to be so fired up about using Moleskine notebooks? I've not seen one in person, but it looks like it's just a plain old notebook to me. Please, tell me - what's the big deal?
~b
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what's the big deal re: Moleskine?
Hi all,
Could someone please tell me why everyone seems to be so fired up about using Moleskine notebooks? I've not seen one in person, but it looks like it's just a plain old notebook to me. Please, tell me - what's the big deal?
~b
Moleskine: More than a notebook
Here's why the Moleskine rocks:
- It lays flat when open.
- It has a pocket built in.
- It has a bookmark built in.
- It has a elastic strap to keep it clsed built in.
- It is strudy.
- It is portable.
- It comes in MANY shapes, sizes and types.
Lookie here for more details: http://www.moleskinenotebook.com/
Basically after years of using rubberbands and bookmarks and post-its and whatnot to 'enhance' normal notebooks i discovered the Moleskine. It is a stand-alond swiss-army notebook.
"Creative mode" catalyst.
Legend, touch of a class, great usability, ability to switch you into "creative mode" and high price.
See also...
See also http://www.diyplanner.com/node/370.
Good features, all, Moses, but in my opinion, blythe, there is nothing inherent in the Moleskine which warrants its legion and legendary lust factor. It's kind of like the Dr. Bonner of notepads -- Dr. Bonner is soap and it is just soap, but it is hugely popular soap because something about the crazy little sentences combined with the squeeze bottle (when it was gaining popularity, liquid soap was still a domestic rarity) have made it a fringe-culture icon that is actually mass culture. The marketing clicked.Originally Posted by mOses nOghbaudie
Now I have no idea what the 'F' type of notepads Hemingway or anyone else actually wrote on, or whether or not their loyalty to said notepad was on the order of the worshipful stance taken by present-day Moleskiners. Or even whether it should matter to anyone. That's moot. But the packaging and marketing of the notebooks -- coupled with its adequate but not supernatural features, have found a solid niche.
Probably has something to do with the fact that its very retro design is itself a counterpoint statement to the technological input devices that are shunned by many of the hipster-pda-ish ilk and intellegentsia who gravitate toward the product.
That said, the company's vertical offerings meet varied needs -- if you do "go Moleskine" you are greeted with enough options in size and content to "stay Moleskine" and you needn't make a decision the next time you go to the stationers about which brand to buy.
Personally, in choosing a notepad, I am seduced primarily by the paper, not the container. For a long time I favored Rhodia pads, which has its own cult of followers and is favored by artists and by writers who prefer to sketch and outline their notes. Pop a Rhodia in your shirt pocket and the distinctive burnt-orange cover flap will, I can almost guarantee, lead to a conversation in a coffee shop or subway station. People who use Rhodia feel themselves, like Moleskiners (even moreso, I think, because it is a smaller bunch), to be part of a select cult of afficianados. For better or worse, Rhodias are distinguished also by perforated paper and graph-grid lines, both of which I found limiting.
I have now settled on Clairefontaine which I was told by a stationer is somehow related to Rhodia -- same company, or something. I do not know for sure. In any case, Clairefontaines are spiral bound (which I prefer -- lays flat) and unperforated (I like the permanence) and the size options are excellently varied. The paper is superb -- pencil, pen, marker -- even cheap pens -- glide along the surface with smudgeless clarity.
Anyone who comes to rely on noetpads ultimately, I think, wishes to become loyal to a brand in the interests of being able to create an aesthetically clean and symmetrical archive as each successive pad gets filled and retired. In that regard, Moleskine is as good an option as any.
Just a Good Notebook
Yep, it's just a plain old notebook. A really, really good plain old notebook.
I use them because they are well-made, and like other good tools (such as my favorite pen or my Zaurus) they help motivate me to get things done. But I use them in spite of all the marketing hype, not because of it. I find most of the manufacturer's blather about "the legendary notebook of Hemmingway" kind of annoying.
Besides, if Hemmingway and Matisse really did use the notebook they've been manufacturing only since the mid-1990s, they could make more money from their time-travel technology than their sales of stationery.
-T.
Hi all,
Thanks for your replies. Must look into this issue in person, I think.
An aside: Every time I look around this forum, I find something else that I need to go and find out about.
This time it's ZAURUS.
Cheers,
~b
There is a mystique about them that is largely touted by the "converts"but the paper is acid-free, holds ink really well and is great to write on. Buy one and write a bit in it, then wirtie in the other notebook you're using now and I think you'll notice a difference. Yes the size, the elastic band and inner pocket (etc.) are all nice but until you write in it, it *is* just another notebook.
I bought the hype. And I bought a moleskin. And I wasted good cash. I brought it home and did everything I could...smelled it, ran my hands across it...ANYTHING...to lower my cognitive dissonance surrounding the purchase. 5 days later when rational thought returned, I thought: "Dear Lord, I just dropped $27 on a small note book".
As my marketing profs parroted time and again: "People like to think they're smarter than they really are. It takes a lot of effort to make rational over emotional purchases".
Overpaid?
The list price for them are $10 - $16. Is that US dollars or Canadian?
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