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We have no idea what they do with them” 88 89 [81]August 30, 2024August 31, 2024 - by [82]Roland Allen[83]Roland Allen 90 Updated 16:06, Aug. 31, 2024 | Published 11:22, Aug. 30, 2024 91 [84]A stack of filled moleskin notebooks on their sideBarry Silver / Flickr 92 93 In the summer of 1995, Maria Sebregondi was mulling over a knotty question, 94 sailing with friends off the Tunisian coast. At thirty-six, she had already 95 enjoyed a fruitful career, translating Marguerite Duras, Samuel Taylor 96 Coleridge, and Vladimir Nabokov into Italian. She was particularly intrigued by 97 the French pair of Georges Perec and Raymond Queneau, who wrote novels and 98 poetry using formal constraints as a spur to creativity. Perec had written an 99 entire novel, La disparition, without using the letter “e”; in Exercices de 100 style, Queneau told the same simple story in ninety-nine versions, using a 101 different prose form for each one. They called their playful genre Oulipo, an 102 acronym derived from the French for “workshop of potential literature.” So 103 Sebregondi was accustomed to the generation of ideas within set parameters, and 104 on this particular sultry evening, she was presented with just such a 105 challenge. 106 107 Her holidaying shipmates included Francesco Franceschi, a friend whose company 108 Modo & Modo sold designer gifts, and that night, he shared a problem. His 109 business depended on other people conceiving and manufacturing products for him 110 to sell, which kept profit margins low. What, asked Franceschi, could Modo & 111 Modo manufacture themselves and thus sell more profitably? The group exchanged 112 ideas long into the night, discussing emerging trends like cellphones, email, 113 and cheap flights. They decided that the consumer they wanted to target with a 114 hypothetical new product belonged to this new era: creative, free spirited, and 115 mobile. Sebregondi labelled their design-conscious customer the “contemporary 116 nomad.” But before any of the party could work out what to manufacture for 117 them, the holiday was over and she had returned home with her children to Rome. 118 119 • [85]Indigo May Have Lost the Plot 120 • [86]The Case for Never Reading the Book Jacket 121 • [87]How Do You Even Sell a Book Anymore? 122 123 The question nagged at her for weeks, and she toyed with ideas, including a 124 traveller’s toolkit containing exquisitely designed pens, bags, T-shirts, 125 penknives, and so on. Nothing met the requirements of Franceschi’s brief, which 126 demanded a product that would be easy to produce yet offer wide commercial 127 potential. Then she came across two passages in the book she was reading for 128 pleasure: The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, a global bestseller since its 129 publication eight years before. In the novel, a lightly fictionalized version 130 of Chatwin explores the Australian outback, coming to understand that its 131 aboriginal culture offers an insight into the origins of human culture—and 132 perhaps into the restlessness of human nature itself. Conspicuously “creative, 133 free spirited, and mobile,” Chatwin himself seemed a perfect fit for the 134 “contemporary nomad,” and two passages in his novel triggered Sebregondi’s 135 memory: 136 137 “Do you mind if I use my notebook?” I asked. 138 139 “Go ahead.” 140 141 I pulled from my pocket a black, oilcloth-covered notebook, its pages held 142 in place with an elastic band. 143 144 “Nice notebook,” he said. 145 146 “I used to get them in Paris,” I said. But now they don’t make them any 147 more.” 148 149 “Paris?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow as if he’d never heard anything so 150 pretentious. 151 152 Then he winked and went on talking. 153 154 Later in the book, Chatwin expands on the story. 155 156 Some months before I left for Australia, the owner of the papeterie said 157 that the vrai moleskine was getting harder and harder to get. There was one 158 supplier: a small family business in Tours. They were very slow in 159 answering letters. 160 161 “I’d like to order a hundred,” I said to Madame. “A hundred will last me a 162 lifetime.” 163 164 She promised to telephone Tours at once, that afternoon. 165 166 At lunchtime, I had a sobering experience. The headwaiter of Brasserie Lipp 167 no longer recognised me. “Non, Monsieur, il n’y a pas de place.” At five, I 168 kept my appointment with Madame. The manufacturer had died. His heirs had 169 sold the business. She removed her spectacles and, almost with an air of 170 mourning, said, “Le vrai moleskine n’est plus.” 171 172 This passage had struck many of Chatwin’s readers; its intimations of mortality 173 seemed to foreshadow the author’s premature death only a year and a half after 174 the publication of The Songlines. But to Sebregondi, it meant something more 175 personal, because she recognized, from her time as a student in Paris, the 176 notebooks Chatwin described. Indeed, she still had several. Digging them out of 177 old boxes, she looked at them for the first time in years—and with new eyes. 178 Why had Chatwin become so attached to this particular model that he would order 179 a hundred rather than risk running out? How could such a utilitarian object 180 assume such importance? Then it struck her that she might have hit upon a 181 solution to Franceschi’s challenge—a simple product, easy to manufacture, 182 appealing to creatives and imparting promises of travel, of glamour, of 183 discovery. 184 185 Phone calls to France confirmed Chatwin’s account (a sensible move: Chatwin 186 always preferred a good story to the literal truth), and Sebregondi’s hunch was 187 confirmed by serendipitous sightings of le vrai moleskine in other contexts: 188 exhibitions of Matisse’s and Picasso’s sketchbooks, a photo of Hemingway at 189 work. This product, she realized, already had a pedigree. More to the point, it 190 had commercial promise, for millions around the world had already read 191 Chatwin’s endorsement. It even accorded with the classic principles of Italian 192 design: like an espresso, a pair of Persol sunglasses, or a Prada dress, le 193 moleskine was minimal, functional, and assertively black. 194 195 And yet, miraculously, no one made it anymore. 196 197 Sebregondi took the idea to Milan, where Franceschi realized that she was on to 198 something. With Chatwin having already solved the thorniest problem faced by 199 anyone marketing a new product (what to call the damn thing), the pair entered 200 what became a two-year process of product design, which resulted in the classic 201 Moleskine notebook. 202 203 You don’t need me to tell you what a Moleskine looks like, but you may not have 204 considered how insistently its design sends messages to the contemporary nomad. 205 The minimal black cover looks, at first glance, like it might be leather: 206 robust but also luxurious. The non-standard dimensions, a couple of centimetres 207 narrower than the familiar A5, let you slip the notebook into a jacket pocket, 208 and the rounded corners—which add considerably to the production cost—help with 209 this. They also stop your pages from getting dog-eared and, together with the 210 elastic strap and unusually heavy cover boards, confirm that the notebook is 211 ready for travel. The edges of the board sit flush with the page block, 212 ensuring that your Moleskine can never be mistaken for a printed book. In use, 213 it lies obediently open and flat, and the pocket glued into the back cover 214 board invites you to hide souvenirs—photos, tickets stubs, the phone numbers of 215 beautiful strangers. Two hundred pages suggest that you have plenty to write 216 about; the paper itself, tinted to a classy ivory shade and unusually smooth to 217 the touch, implies that your ideas deserve nothing but the best, and the ribbon 218 marker helps you navigate your musings. Discreetly minimal it may seem, but the 219 whole package is as shot through with brand messaging as anything labelled 220 Nike, Mercedes, or Apple—and, like the best cues, the messaging works on a 221 subconscious level. 222 223 But in case those cues alone were not enough, Moleskine spelled out its brand 224 values in the small folded leaflet which the notebook’s new owner would 225 “discover”—as Sebregondi tellingly puts it—tucked in the pocket. The leaflet’s 226 copy has evolved over time, and more and more languages have been added to it, 227 but the central message has changed little from the early, Italian-only, 228 version: 229 230 The Moleskine is an exact reproduction of the legendary notebook of 231 Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse. Anonymous custodian of an extraordinary 232 tradition, the Moleskine is a distillation of function and an accumulator 233 of emotions that releases its charge over time. From the original notebook 234 a family of essential and trusted pocket books was born. Hard cover covered 235 in moleskine, elastic closure, thread binding. Internal bellowed pocket in 236 cardboard and canvas. Removable leaflet with the history of Moleskine. 237 Format 9 x 14 cm. 238 239 The leaflet opened with a lie (the new Moleskines were not “exact reproductions 240 of the old”) then immediately veered toward gibberish, but that didn’t matter. 241 Pound for pound, those seventy-five words proved themselves among the most 242 effective pieces of commercial copywriting of all time, briskly connecting the 243 product’s intangible qualities—usefulness and emotion—to its material 244 specification, thereby selling both the sizzle and the steak. Sebregondi and 245 Franceschi picked an astutely international selection of names to drop: an 246 Englishman, an American, and a Frenchman encouraged cosmopolitan aspirations. 247 “Made in China,” on the other hand, did not, so they left that bit out. 248 249 Modo & Modo ordered the initial production run of 3,000 notebooks in 1997, and 250 the new Moleskine first went on sale in Milan, in a small bookshop on the Corso 251 Buenos Aires. It sold through its consignment in days. Avoiding traditional 252 stationers, the company targeted design retailers and bookstores: the strategy 253 worked, and in 1998, they sold 30,000 notebooks. From 1999, they used their 254 existing networks to distribute around Europe and then across the Atlantic. 255 Within ten years, the American chain bookseller Barnes & Noble had become the 256 brand’s largest retail partner. Just as Franceschi had hoped, the high profit 257 margins transformed Modo & Modo’s fortunes. In 2006, a private equity firm 258 bought him out, and sales continued to grow. 259 260 In 2013, the Moleskine SpA launched on the Italian stock exchange, and in 2016, 261 a Belgian car distributor bought the company outright, for half a billion 262 euros. Small wonder that the story is now taught in business schools as a 263 textbook example of successful product design and marketing. In 2017, the story 264 came full circle when Moleskine and Chatwin’s publisher struck a deal to 265 publish a new edition of The Songlines, bound in the now-familiar black boards, 266 complete with elastic closure, rounded corners, ribbon markers, and pocket. You 267 bought it shrink-wrapped to a blank journal, embossed—in a gesture which 268 Chatwin would surely have recoiled from—with the motivational boost “Enjoy your 269 travel writing.” 270 271 Sebregondi herself stayed relentlessly on message for two decades, giving 272 scores of interviews whose recurring theme was that the Moleskine was “first of 273 all, an enabler for creativity.” 274 275 Having stayed with the business through its various incarnations, she stepped 276 back in 2017 and currently gives her time to the charitable Moleskine 277 Foundation, which aims to drive social change, especially in sub-Saharan Africa 278 and Eastern Europe, through—naturally—creativity. She also remains involved 279 with Oplepo, the Italian offshoot of Oulipo. Her most recent translation is of 280 Queneau’s One Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, in which the reader randomly 281 generates sonnets from the book’s thousands of rhyming lines, constraints 282 proving creative. 283 284 I bought my first Moleskine during the early years of that boom and, a while 285 later, found myself working for a book publisher keen to share in the 286 Moleskine-driven growth of the upscale stationery market. Notebooks, we 287 reasoned, had no words and no pictures—the tricky, expensive things that make 288 “real” books so difficult to profit from. How hard could it be to cash in? So 289 we created a range of notebooks, brightly designed and packed with gimmicks, 290 and placed a substantial order at the printers. I was charged with visiting 291 Barnes & Noble’s Fifth Avenue head office to present our wares, and I suggested 292 that our colourful product could supply healthy turnover if racked alongside 293 Moleskine in their stores. 294 295 The buyer eyed me skeptically. “Along with the Moleskines,” he said. “Do you 296 know there’s a section of our customer base that buys a fresh Moleskine every 297 time they come into a store? Once a week, some people. We have no idea what 298 they do with them.” 299 300 I showed off my samples, stressing the cream paper, the ribbon markers, and the 301 striking cover designs that supposedly set our brand apart. He shook his head 302 and handed me a familiar black notebook in response. “See this?” he said. “We 303 make them ourselves, own brand. The same size, the same number of pages. We use 304 the same paper, the same boards, we make them at the same plants in China. 305 They’re every bit as good as a Moleskine, and we ask half as much for them.” He 306 paused for effect. “And Moleskine still outsells us. And you’re asking me to 307 take shelf space away?” 308 309 I was learning a hard lesson about the power of the brand. Others, however, 310 made a better go of it. From 2005, Leuchtturm, whose specialty had been stamp 311 collectors’ albums, took on Moleskine, matching them for quality while 312 offering—the vulgarity!—a range of colours; older companies like 313 Clairefontaine, Rhodia, and Paperblanks refreshed their offerings. Western 314 hipsters, always alert to high-end Japanese design, started to import notebooks 315 from companies like Midori, Hobonichi, and Stalogy, which bested any of the 316 European brands with their exquisite papers and bindings (Moleskine and 317 Leuchtturm both use mainly Taiwanese paper). In the US, Field Notes struck a 318 utilitarian chord with a mid-century aesthetic. All presented a fresh spin on 319 the basic product, and all benefited from the product building that Moleskine 320 had done. If you cared for upmarket stationery, the 2010s were a golden age. 321 322 At the same time, the Moleskine became a potent status symbol. Tech CEOs toted 323 them, as did the designers, journalists, and writers whom Sebregondi had 324 envisaged—and even more people whose aspirations perhaps outran their actual 325 creativity. Spotted in your local Starbucks, these characters were easily 326 mocked: the satirical website Stuff White People Like made hay with their 327 accessorizing, as did the right-wing politician Karl Rove, who once told his 328 audience at Yale that he knew them to be pretentious by their Moleskines. The 329 mockery did nothing to hurt sales. 330 331 Neither did a growing interest, from psychologists and lifestyle gurus, in the 332 notebook’s practical effectiveness. Sebregondi herself suggested that the 333 notebook’s minimal form made it a perfect creative tool, talking of it in the 334 same terms as Queneau’s deliberately constrained work: “a simple object,” 335 giving her the “sense of extraordinary possibility born from small things.” The 336 productivity guru David Allen recommended making lists in notebooks, as did 337 neuroscientist Daniel Levitin; the journalist David Sax wrote a book, The 338 Revenge of Analog, which depicted paper notebooks (along with vinyl LPs, board 339 games, and film cameras) mounting a spirited resistance against digital 340 replacement. It became commonplace to contrast the old technology with the new. 341 The original Moleskine had launched at the same time as the Palm Pilot, the 342 first hand-held digital organizer, and had, from day one, faced competition 343 from increasingly powerful devices. The laptop, the BlackBerry, the iPhone, and 344 the iPad all seemed to offer far greater functionality than their paper 345 antecedent, but a stubborn constituency of users refused to move over into the 346 digital sphere, and numerous peer-reviewed studies soon showed that their 347 obduracy made sense. Something about the act of writing by hand, and the 348 production of a physical object, makes the older technology more effective than 349 the new. Sebregondi had, unwittingly, prompted serious inquiry into the 350 workings of the human brain. 351 352 My own interest in notebooks had also progressed beyond the commercial. I read 353 Samuel Pepys, loving the unfettered way in which he documented work, home, 354 leisure, his urban environment, and his sex life; then I discovered my 355 grandfather’s eye-opening pre-war diaries, just as wide ranging, although much 356 briefer. So I started keeping my own journal in 2002, and each year added to a 357 steadily growing heap of battered notebooks. 358 359 Writing a diary made me happier; keeping things-to-do lists made me more 360 reliable (which, in turn, made those around me happier), and I learned never to 361 go to a doctor’s appointment, or a meeting of any kind, without taking notes of 362 what I heard. But there appeared to be creative benefits too. Every artist I 363 met seemed to have a sketchbook to hand, as did graphic designers—and even web 364 designers, whose product was entirely digital. Authors all kept notebooks, as 365 did journalists, critics, and other creative types—and the more assiduously 366 they used those notebooks, the better their work seemed to be. The same applied 367 to my colleagues’ work: playful lists, diagrams, and sketches regularly 368 disgorged surprisingly good ideas. 369 370 When notebooks appear on the scene, interesting things happen. To open up to 371 the blank page and interact with it takes energy and sometimes a little 372 courage. 373 374 But the rewards may surprise. 375 376 Excerpted from [88]The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland 377 Allen. Copyright © Roland Allen 2024. Excerpted with permission from 378 Biblioasis. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without 379 permission in writing from the publisher. 380 381 [89]Roland Allen 382 [90]Roland Allen 383 Roland Allen lives in Brighton, England, and works in book (and notebook) 384 publishing. He has written books on bicycles and bread, has kept a diary for 385 decades, and enjoys stationery a little too much. 386 Tagged[91]audio[92]books[93]excerpt[94]history[95]homepage 387 388 Related Posts 389 390 [96] Man shakes hands with a robot in an office setting. 391 392 [97] Companies Are Outsourcing Job Interviews to AI. What Could Go Wrong? 393 394 June 2, 2025June 2, 2025 395 396 [98] A photo illustration shows a handshake with currency notes pressed between 397 them 398 399 [99] Canada Hands Out Billions to Corporations. 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