The Moleskine blogging project

I've recently received several Moleskine notebooks as gifts; indeed I've gotten many notebooks as presents over the years, as I've left the not always accurate impression on others that I am a prodigious producer of words.

The problem with notebooks is this: the nicer they are, the less you want to sully them with your own unimpressive creations. Take the Moleskine. It has a rather officious, leathery-looking cover, a little elastic band, and even a cord bookmark, like a King James bible. Who wants to put stray phone numbers and grocery lists in that? Thus they sat, spines unbent, in a small stack on my nightstand for several months until I decided to get involved in this business of Moleskine blogging.

It's not a new idea, although it is generally reserved for Actual Artists who draw things. And yet it is the perfect format for papercasting: the notebooks fold flat, which is ideal for scanning. They are small and nondescript, so easier to sneak into boring corporate meetings than say, a large sketch pad. And they create an organized diary of the random things you might want to scan and post on your blog about papercasting.

So.

This is the format I use for papercasting on this blog.

More information

The webs have a few things to say on the subject of Moleskine blogging. It's quite a little trend. See how one man organizes his pocket diary with a reference system, and a discussion of using the Moleskine for analog blogging. See various hacks of the Moleskine to add features that don't ship with the product; a tab hack, and a pen hack.