5 posts tagged “london”
I'm sure Lomo is treating Diana+ the next wave of 120 toy camera after Holga coz they have the sole ownership of Diana's production as supposed to Holga which anybody with sufficient MOQ can make one by themselves. That's why they acquired from Allan Detrich, a collector of Diana camera, the whole collection he found from auctions and named it "The Detrich Collection" for their upcoming campaigns.
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:
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.
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?
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.
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.
Flipping back and forth: Since all the maps are cut up into sections, in addition to the above trouble to flip from main map to locate a zoom-in page, I have great problem with the London and Paris maps because most of the key locations I needed to visit are sitting at the margin of those little maps. For example in London, if you walk in the SOHO area between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus stations, you have to flip between two pages and smaller streets' names are not on the maps, prepare to flip frantically if you are not familiar with the area.
Not enough translucent sheets: City Notebook Lacks enough
translucent sheets for even just one trip to those who are new to the
city. There are just 12 of such sheets and since there are a lot
of map pages, you can't write on the translucent sheets on every map if
needed. Worst, you can't buy them coz they are not available as
individual retail refill.
Translucent sheets are not for pencils and roller balls: Since I found that I don't have enough translucent sheets and roller ball ink doesn't dry fast enough, I tried to use pencil on them so that I can later reuse some of sheets, turned out the sheets are not pencil/eraser friendly either. If you try to use an eraser to clear pencil marks, the sheets will change from matte to gloss, you can't write with a pencil on the gloss surface anymore.
Translucent sheet too small: If I started to use ballpoint pen on the sheets to mark several locations and suddenly I found that some of the locations are close to the page margin and by moving the sheets to get closer the the margin it would render the previously marked points dislocated, therefore new sheets are needed. The sheets need to be a bit bigger to cover the margins.
Translucent sheet not friendly to bookmark: If you have two translucent sheets sticked to opposite pages and you placed the bookmark in between, close the notebook and try to open the page using the bookmark, it will slide underneath either one translucent page and it is clumsy when you want to find something quick.
Things I found City Notebook great though:
- Great concept to plan ahead and enjoy the process, knowing the city before you travel and with support from MoleskineCity blog
- Intuitively combine notes-taking and city navigation with maps
- Retaining measures and conversions info, found it useful in several in several occasions
- Perfect size fitting most pockets
- 3 bookmarks allowing quick access to info
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