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That Moleskine Cow...

Patrick Ng
Jul 15, 2008
4 comments

It has been less fun to see all those Moleskine exhibitions nowadays, for me. In June I visited Tokyo's Lifestyle show and just last week I visited Tokyo again for the International Stationery show. In both event, Moleskine was elaborately exhibited there. My feeling towards the writing, journaling, drawing culture of the Moleskiners lowered significantly simply because it all became too commercial.

Moleskine Detour Exhibition in Lifestyle Show Tokyo June 2008

In both events, I got a little time to look at all those drawings from the Detour project, (as corrected by Paola - Moleskine brand equity & network relations, "the exhibition in Lifestyle show did not contain any works from Detour project, all the Detour events are listed on the official website www.moleskine.com/detour where you can take a look at the notebook and also read some lines on the single author's biography. The Detour Project is not a commercial event and it's meant to support the non profit foundation lettera27") as well as those from Invitation au Voyage. Who were the artists and what's their stories? I didn't care to find out anymore. They became one of the thousands of notebooks with drawings. The booth design and display however was great.

One large table was dedicated to all those examples of corporate-premium-limited editions. Do I want to collect them all? No. And look, in June I went to Shibuya's Loft and the space dedicated to a short-term promotion of Moleskine was so huge it spans nearly 4 meters wide.

Moleskine in Shibuy Loft, Tokyo June 2008

The ever increasing SKU now becomes unbearable to me. Now the spinners made by Modo e Modo are invading retailers especially department stores. Yes these are negative feelings of me not liking product marketing being too commercial and people forget about the artists who contributed. I even heard that there will be more stationery products from Moleskine, e.g. maybe a ring binders with an elastic band (which was used as a catalog distributed to distributors last year).

Moleskine New Products 2008

Now many asked about when the leather version of 2009 diary will be launched. I heard that it will arrive in Hong Kong around end-August. So it will be around mid-August for people in Europe to buy them. The catch, only 1 retailer per country is allowed to sell the limited edition. It will be disappointing a lot of fans, I love the look and feel of the notebook though :)

A note from a recent meeting with a French stationery maker: Société Générale, one of the main European financial services companies which acquired Moleskine for 60 euros (3 times Moleskine's market value back then?) back in 2006, experienced a 4.9 billion euros trading lost in just three days in January 2008. They are going to milk the Moleskine cow!

Well, I have a thought. The tremendous success of Moleskine's revival is a true marketing success story. Millions of community effort to promote its branding. What have Moleskine done to return favor to the community? Now that Moleskine is made in China, a fact that not many people adore, what did Moleskine do when there was a great earthquake in SiChuan China when more than 71,000 people were dead? Well I did a search on Google "Moleskine Charity" and nothing really came up. Enlighten me if I'm wrong (and Paola did, the lettera27 projects are making changes that will certainly produce a larger results in longer run, the next Chatwin waves may change the world as we know it. As a retailer we are increasing our efforts to source from companies that encourage food chain sustainability such as farming/fishing, while on the product manufacturing side the burden is now on top tier vendors/manufacturers to set examples when fair trade, environmental protection and cultural preservation become common terms. I hope Moleskine as a global brand will create conscious efforts to localize the such practice in countries they appear and source from, especially when they enter the CHINA market in the near future. Yes, a huge challenge for a company with only a dozen of staff, but the impact they can make will be tremendous.). I mean I love the brand and product, just that I expected a little more from it to be more cultural instead of commercial, more world-class in terms of charity instead of world-domination.

Moleskine in Orange

Patrick Ng
Jul 15, 2008
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Catchy title isn't it? No they don't produce an orange leather Moleskine, it was just me playing around with colors to decorate my Moleskine. Gfeller leather cover was a gift from friend Kelly, which was painted with black shoe polish, a technique taught by illustrator/artist Steve Light, Faber Castell perfect pencil in orange, a promotional leaflet in the form of typewriter from Orange Airline (a stationery company in Japan), and orange/red brick floor tiles.

Moleskine in Orange

Tokyo, 8th - 13th July 2008, trip for the ISOT (International Stationery Show).

MY MOLESKINE 19号

角折れ、束破れ、ゴムびろびろ。本日、任務終了。おつかれさまでした。

20080606125931.jpg

Viva Moleskine!

marina
Jun 18, 2008
13 comments

Pelikan and Moleskine

2 comments

My new soft cover 2009 monthly planner. 3.5" X 5.5".

But we are in June, dood....

I know: it's sick......sorry...I can't help it: gotta have it now! :-)

Features month to view on two pages, two ruled pages between months. Second half of the book consists of ruled pages. Pocket on the back cover, cloth bookmark, elastic closer.

The Pelikan fountain pen shown in the last photo resembles my first fountain pen that I used in elementary school (yes,[ in Italy] I used fountain pens in elementary school, my teacher required it!).

Travel Photo Cafe Concept Development

Patrick Ng
Jun 1, 2008
5 comments

Travel Photo Cafe Concept Photo

This is the second year I host a Travel Cafe thematic promotion at Festival Walk store. In addition to this year's larger promotion at Times Square city'super, we still have a more content driven promotion at LOG-ON in Festival Walk. This Polaroid is part of the concept development material I did. In it a Bialetti moka express, Moleskine city notebook with Gfeller Casemakers cover painted with black leather shoe polish (Thanks to Steve Light who taught me that!), Midori Traveler's Notebook, metal globe and cardboard card case and a Minolta A camera. I've designed a postcard which will be freely distributed before the fair in mid-June 2008.

The fun thing about this fair is that other than just showing people travel related products, there will be a small talk with speakers from Lomography, Lonely Planet and Moleskine. The casual talk will show people how easy and fun to take great photos other than typical scenery and mug shot photos, we'll show attendees how to layout photos on albums such as KOLO. The techniques are so simple you just need to learn a different travel attitude and a few photo shooting or layout concepts. It will be great fun!

Besides, this fair will be the key launch event of Moleskine's Hong Kong and Beijing City Notebooks!! I received prototypes of these and I found a great insert for the Beijing version. It is a small booklet inserted into the back pocket with the Beijing Olympic site map and key information. More info coming up ....

Props: Mattias Inks

Smiley
May 30, 2008
1 comment

Nerdbots

'Skine Art, a blog that posts random drawing, sketches, and doodles from artists' Moleskine notebooks, is one of my favorite daily reads.

Recently, there have been several fun posts featuring the work of Mattias Adolfsson. On his blog, Mattias describes himself as a freelance illustrator; his blog seems to function as his online resume for potential employers.

The image above comes from Adolfsson's Flickr account and I am re-posting it here under the terms provided by the Creative Commons license.

If you're interested in art, illustration, watercolor, or Moleskines, you may want to check out his work.

DZg - You are the Light

DZgunrock
May 29, 2008
3 comments

DZg - You are the Light

DZgunrock

DZgunrock - You are the Light
29th MAY 2008, No.246

TRIO
Cranes - Light Song
Baz Without Dave - You're The Prettiest Thing
Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli - I Got Rhythm

BoT + Modofly = Awesome!

Lounge Kat
May 15, 2008
1 comment

Modofly

Thought I'd post this up because they're just so damned cool!
Sean Kelly aka - Bucket'O'Thought aka - my lovely boyfriend has just produced two lovely books with Modofly.

You can buy them via modofly.net and etsy.... SO DO IT!

Vox Hunt: Tool Time

frindley
May 9, 2008
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Show us your favorite tool.
Submitted by Maraschino.

Rotring 600

Rotring doesn't make the 600 series anymore. In fact Rotring (as a top quality German maker of pens) doesn't really exist anymore. I love the heft of the brass case, the hexagonal cross-section and the knurled grip – it reminds me of my father's workshop and learning how to work with wood and tools as a kid. And they're great to write with too!

Moleskine Moly_x_10 Group: My Book

Patrick Ng
May 6, 2008
1 comment

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.

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