27 posts tagged “moleskine”

Moleskine Moly_x_10 Group: My Book

May 6, 2008
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Here's a Moleskine Japanese Album I started for the Moly_x_10 group. The topic here is: What has nothing to do with TIME. I'm going to send it to the next artists inviting them to add their drawings/writings to enlighten me.

Moly_x_10 My Book

I believe TIME is the greatest invention by human consciousness to cope with the ever changing world of uncertainty. Many of the things we all treasure have nothing to do with TIME. What are they? Imagination is one of them I contemplated. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world - Albert Einstein".

Moly_x_10 My Book

For this Moleskine I punched a hole on the front cover and added an eyelet holding a string. I found that many of my old Moleskine have problem with the elastic band deteriorated, so I customized this one this way, not as handy but won't be ugly in *time*. The external pocket was also fixed on the cover, which holds a tag, a note to other artists and a scrap photo.

There are two ways to do the enclosure, like an envelope or like a parcel. I hope it will travel safely back to me opening new windows of my consciousness.

Moly_x_10 Entry

May 4, 2008
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Moly_x_10

Participated in Moly_x_10, a group to draw stuffs on each other's Moleskine Japanese Album. Today I received Kelly's book and drew these pages based a theme she specified - the view from here. Her drawing is a girl sitting on hilltop in front of a tree looking at clouds. I added clouds to continue her theme, but two of the clouds became breasts stemming out from a female tree body. The words: Human and Nature is all but one, imagine recomposing our reality in most unusual and creative ways, all but really possible.

Moleskine Icons Back Online!

Apr 2, 2008
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Moleskine Icons

The Moleskine icons for Mac was created in 2005 but since my service provider crashed the entire MoleskineArt.com site, I have been unable to find a free and reliable hosting for the site and its relevant contents. All updates of MoleskineArt.com are now on this VOX blog. Due to constant demand, I now put these icons back online for you to download. (For some reasons in MacOSX Jaguar, the book no longer open up when you hover a file over it.)

Moleskine Icons

These icons can be used as folder, document or application icons. Some even numbered so that you can organize your works.

Moleskine Icons: Robert Fisher Edition

Special thanks to Robert Fisher from Sketchbob for allowing me to use some of his artworks for a Robert Fisher Edition. Enjoy!

Domingo's Moleskine Song, hahah

Mar 21, 2008
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Moleskine Song - Domingo Martín

Interesting "song". Wish the lighting were better. Thanks Domingo.

Bad Travel Agent, Lunch A Phone Call Away

Feb 11, 2008
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After my 2007 nightmare hotel episode, guess what, this time it is not bad hotel but bad agent's arrangement. I was heading toward PaperWorld Frankfurt after 11 hours of back aching flight, since there were 4 of us, taking taxi to Holiday Inn Express in town was reasonable, about 30 euros in 20 minutes. When we got there around 6am we presented our "vouchers" and the reception said "this is no voucher, this is a piece of print out and nothing more". Well, he searched and searched on his computer and couldn't find our reservation even though we have "confirmation number" written on the voucher.

6am Frankfurt

Then he figured there are two Holiday Inn Express in Frankfurt, one close to the airport, one in town. So he phoned and found that even though our "voucher" said Holiday Inn Express Gutleutstr (in the city), our reservation was actually Holiday Inn Express Airport! So we took taxi again, 30 euros in 20 minutes, back to the airport area, waited two hours to get a room just released, then head to Messe in the city again. So here we go, 11 hours flight followed by 20 minutes ride from airport to town, then 20 minutes back to airport area to check in the right hotel, then 20 minutes back to the city for the show. Poor agent! Bad agent! When is it going to stop. Well, I had no problem at all for Japan trips coz the arrangement has always been arranged by our careful Japanese colleagues.

lunch a phone call away

Here's an interesting scene before I go into more updates from my Europe/Japan visit. We went to lunch after 2:30pm one day in PaperWorld Messe, 6 or 7 people queueing up in front of the cashier waiting for somebody to serve. A black staff stood there doing nothing, a white female staff talking on the phone on something seemed so serious everybody had to wait. I didn't bring my Lomo LCA+ with wide angle, otherwise it could've been the best shot of real life story. I figured probably the black guy had absolutely no authority to touch the cashier while the white lady was on the phone. So everybody including us would have our lunch just a phone call away.

Moleskine Leather Diaries & New Volant

Feb 10, 2008
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Authentics showcased Moleskine's 2008 new products in PaperWorld 2008. To help retailers to show more products in limited space, Modo e Modo will also release new ground and counter top spinners in order to accommodate all the new line-ups.

Moleskine New Products 2008

These brand new Moleskine Leather Cover Diaries are limited edition, something Modo e Modo haven't done playing with nicer cover material for a few years now (check out the previous one I have here). They are "bound in patent Italian top quality leather. The shiny surface, in red and black, evokes the precious Eastern lakes, in honor of a great tradition that returns to life nowadays and brightens our daily acts", said in the catalog.

Moleskine New Products 2008

In addition to the new cover, the packaging is also very special and never seen before from Modo e Modo. It will be done similar to Japanese Furoshiki wrapping with a translucent paper banderole. The limited edition leather diaries are pocket size only with choice of red or black, IMHO the red one looks super nice. Each color has two versions to choose from: Daily or weekly horizontal.

Moleskine New Products 2008

Vola! The new Volant now comes in 3 sizes (extra small, pocket and large) and two types (ruled and plain), each package is a set of two color tones (black/black, lime/green, pink/pale pink, blue/deep blue). The quality of the cover improved a lot from previous version. The extra small version is particularly a good complement to any Moleskine acting as a notepad for quick or casual note taking.

Moleskine New Products 2008

What I said from my previous post about less innovations from Modo e Modo still hold true IMHO. To this date, there is no sight of any accessories coming soon from them judging from their 28 pages of product catalog for 2008 for distributors.

Fresh News from PaperWorld and Maison et Objet

Jan 31, 2008
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A post supposed to appear 3 days ago but here it is:
I have tons of news about stationery to update on this blog after my Frankfurt PaperWorld 2008 trip. "Express by Holiday Inn" was providing very slow "high speed" internet, so I couldn't upload any images before. Come back in 2-3 days' time and you will find news and images about: Moleskine Leather version with very special packaging, Moleskine new Volant improved cover and color packs, LAMY new pen designed by Naoto Fukasawa (first time Lamy contracts an outsider for design), LAMY new Al-star ROSE! More notebook offers from companies like X47/X17, Greenwitch, etc. I have more than 20 news and interview with stationery people and store owners waiting to blast off.

PaperWorld and Maison et Objet

So now I'm in Paris visiting Maison et Objet, which is a great great show and very inspiring for me. I will fly back the day after tomorrow. Tonight my boss took us to a very nice French restaurant for dinner (great decorations and foie gras) and we paid a little visit to the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Elysee.
....
So stay tuned for lots of exciting news.

More Moleskine Knock-offs, Less Innovations from Modo e Modo

Jan 16, 2008
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After my last report on Moleskine Knock-offs in Oct 2007, more knock-offs appearing nearly every few months now. At first glance this 2008 weekly diary from our colleague is a Moleskine 12 months soft cover. Turn it over it shows a silver color hot stamped UA Cinemas logo, but where is the Moleskine logo?

Moleskine 2008 Diary Knock-off - UA Cinemas

She got this free gift right after her membership registration with UA Cinemas. It was a promotion done in second half of 2007. After examining the pocket, I determined that it was definitely not Moleskine. The paper was less yellowish than Moleskine paper, the font was different from the original, the round corners had bigger radius, no holiday information, etc etc.

Furious at them as a fan? No, not at all, on the contrary I'm getting less patient for Moleskine's development. Yes, Modo e Modo is churning out dozens of new products every year (IMHO too much as I just saw their 2008 line up), but retailers are starting to have difficulty keep tracking/following/managing the ever increasing SKUs while imitators took over portions of the market.

As production capability from China factories are getting stronger, more efficient and quality is getting higher with lower minimum quantity requirement, the whole thing becomes a typical nasty "differentiate or die" scenario. Stop lingering in the "legendary notebook" era and move forward to true product innovations! The "legendary" appeal is going to die off soon in this internet age, to be a true legend requires a lot more consistent innovations to stay in the market, not just numerous iterations of already successful product form factors with minor changes of the cover materials, colors and printed contents. Well, simply think of the Apple Computer story.

City Notebook was a great move to create new market (despite very slow sales from retailers' point of view) with new and refreshing look to a typical travel guide, supported by a great online community of travelers. What's next?

Moleskine 2008 Diary Knock-off - UA Cinemas

It will be such a great thought experiment and exercise for marketers, inventors to get into this game and play collaboratively to think about the future of Moleskine.

M.bian Moleskine Case Meets Rickshaw's Mark Dwight

Jan 15, 2008
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The world is so small now and everything happen instantaneously. Despite the fact that the M.bian case was designed like more than 2 years ago, the minute I went public with the design looking for quality manufacturer to actually make it available for all Moleskine fans, I got dozens of replies and supports. Moleskinerie reported the case and one fellow posted a request to Timbuk2's idea page, several people who got the connection to manufacturers made contact to me.

Mark Dwight on Moleskine

In Responses to M.bian Moleskine Case, Mark Dwight posted a reply that he could help. In several quick exchanges, I found that he was about to come to Hong Kong and we immediately set up a meeting.

Mark Dwight and his Moleskine

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Mark was actually the CEO/investor of Timbuk2 from 2002 to 2006, who sold the company to private equity investors and left along side with Rob Honeycutt, the founder of Timbuk2, to establish a new company called Rickshaw Bagworks. Rickshaw means human power and Mark is going to launch the first bag with Rob in early 2008. The first appearance will be in TED conference, which Rickshaw sponsors the official conference bag to be handed out to attendees (each style has exactly two copies, so you will be so lucky to meet a person carrying the same bag design out of the thousand attendees). Mark is going to have 10 minutes talks to the audience about how Rickshaw uses recycle materials to create its bags - from bottle to bag.

Mark Dwight meets M.bian Case

We had a long chat about bag features and Mark went into so many technical details about how to make a great bag from recycle materials. Finally we came to discuss the M.bian case. I told him the reasoning behind the case, while he made many input about usability and suggested to concentrate on simple features rather than trying to be too many things at the same time. Next move, some sample materials from him and we hope to do something good for the community. To date, there is not one single case specifically designed for Moleskine which is more than just a cover IMHO, I hope we can create something great with style.

Moleskine and Accessories - Create Your Perfect Notebook

Dec 6, 2007
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Create Your Perfect Notebook

Christmas is near and I've been thinking of how to show our customers what they can do with their stationery and how to enhance the moments. My perfect notebook is composed of a Moleskine soft cover 18 months diary, a blank Moleskine, Authentics' PenClip, an Italian 4 color ball point pen (though I wish it can be a roller ball pen) and a clasp from Japan. I displayed the combination 2 days ago in our gallery and put up a POP showing customer what's in the combination.

Create Your Perfect Notebook

I also stamped "The Times" press logo using gold pigment ink on the cover of the soft-cover Moleskine which created a classic look on the perfect notebook. The stamp was actually a letterpress stamp I bought from London, originated from the Fleet Street where the press was situated years ago. Gee, I'm hooked on Stationery really :)