Ninth Wave Designs

Cutting Corners: Moleskine / Battlestar Galactica Hack

I made a customized Cahier for a friend who is off to college for the first time.  He was kind enough to lend me Battlestar Galactica Season One and Season 2.0 on DVD to watch, so I was inspired by the stylized effect of the books in the show to create this Moleskine / Battlestar Galactica hack.  It is quite literally a hack, in that all I did was cut off the corners of a pocket and large size black squared Cahier using an X- Acto knife.  I added a sticker I made from a promo image from the show featuring the BG logo.

The use of cut corners throughout the BSG world is an interesting stylistic effect, being employed for all forms of paper, print media, picture frames, computer screens - you name it.  My friend is studying computer game programming, so I thought this Moleskine hack would give him some extra geek cred among the other programmers at his school, or at least provide a conversation starter.  Hopefully he will think of me when Season 2.5 becomes available too!

UPDATE 9/27/06:  Someone has recommended this post on the Frak Party blog, for possible party favors for your BSG season 3 launch party.  The rollover in the blog banner is worth the visit alone, but also be sure to see how to host your own Frak Party on the main website HERE.

Ideas Won't Keep: Cahier Idea Notebook

The title for the post comes from the following quote by Alfred North Whitehead:

"The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them."

This is a combination post of "Quotes for Your Notebook" and "Moleskine Creations" themes, brought about by my need for a notebook to have handy to toss various ideas into.  I generally use my Moleskine Pocket Daily Diary to record stray thoughts and brief ideas - of the more random and passing nature of made up movie titles or simple plot outlines for stories I will never get around to writing.  I also needed a notebook that would provide the space for larger ideas, where I could write several pages compared to the several sentence lengths in my daily diary.  I chose a Moleskine large kraft Cahier with squared pages, but since I have several of these floating around for different uses I wanted the idea book to stand out from the others. 

I started by making the painting of the light bulb in my pocket size Moleskine Watercolor Reporter notebook.  I used watercolor colored pencils and Pitt brush markers to paint the image, and then removed the page from the notebook.  I cut a hole in the cover of the large Cahier in the shape of the light bulb, and then used a combination of glue stick and tape to secure the watercolor page inside the front cover.  I am happy with the results, and it is easy for me to find this notebook among the clutter on my desk.

If Alfred North Whitehead's words are to be followed, then something indeed needs to be done to keep our ideas - and the pages of a humble Cahier might be just the place for those vital intellectual adventures to work themselves out.

Bellyband 2006: A Gorey New Year.

I recently picked up a copy of the book Ladies of the Gothics: Tales of Romance and Terror by the Gentle Sex, selected and introduced by Seon Manley & Gogo Lewis.  I found it used at the Salvation Army, with a tattered but interesting dust jacket by my favorite illustrator Edward Gorey.  It is a 1979 library edition of the 1975 original, a library discard, and as such, even with an Edward Gorey dust jacket it was worth less to a collector than the small sum I paid for it at Salvo.  It looks like a great bedside table book though, with selections by the likes of Ruth Rendell, Emily Brontë, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Isak Dinesen, among others. I'm looking forward to reading these stories - this is the perfect collection for those nights when sleep is elusive.

My new 2006 Moleskine Pocket Daily Diary was in need of a bellyband to distinguish it from its 2005 counterpart.  The dust jacket from this book was worn and tattered along the top and bottom edges, but the middle section was in good enough shape to provide an interesting band of paper to make this bellyband.  I wish now that I had scanned the dust jacket before making the bellyband so that I could show the complete artwork from the cover of the book.  In capturing this wonderful Gorey figure, a "Gothic Lady" with wistful expression and hand resting firmly on a skull, I also incorporated the text of the last two words of the subtitle, "gentle sex", as part of the bellyband design. Overall I feel this makes for an appropriately enigmatic composition, suitable for an image originating with Edward Gorey.

With this auspicious beginning I feel that 2006 is going to be a good year for my Moleskine Daily Diary.

For a good romp through some of the better Edward Gorey sites on the web start HERE at Goreography.com, which includes THIS page for people interested in collecting his books.

Click on the images for larger versions.

Moleskine Hack: Turn a Large Sketchbook into a Storyboard Notebook.

I have a friend who recently began working on an animation project, so naturally I gave her a Moleskine Pocket sized Storyboard notebook.  Her immediate response was, "This is a fabulous idea, do they make them in the large size?"   I have been asked this many times by customers ever since Moleskine started offering the pocket size Storyboard Notebook, and for now it seems the answer is no.  Most of the page styles are available in both the large (5¼"x 8¼" / 13 x 21 CM) and the pocket (3½" x 5½" / 9 x 14 CM) sizes, but perhaps because the Storyboard format is so specialized it is only available in the pocket size.

I decided then that a template was in order, and so after constructing one in Adobe Illustrator I was able to transform a Large Moleskine Sketchbook into a Large Moleskine Storyboard notebook with very little effort.  My animator friend is happy now, with a larger cell size and page format to make more detailed storyboard sketches to work from.  I am making this template available as a PDF file through the Ninth Wave Designs blog, so you too can transform a large sketchbook into a large storyboard notebook, and be the envy of all your friends!

Here's what you will need:

1. One (or more) Large Moleskine Sketchbook - you can buy them online HERE (thank you very much!).
2. A printed version of the Moleskine Hack Template which you can access and print HERE.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to access this file.
3. A pair of sharp scissors, or even better, an X-acto knife and ruler to cut out the template.
4. A fine point pen of your choice - I recommend a Pigma Micron .005 or .01 point for a very fine line, or a fine point mechanical pencil (if you don't plan on erasing your storyboard sketch).

The Moleskine Hack Template: Click the image
to access the PDF file.

Once you get your template printed onto cardstock and cut out it is easy to add the storyboard cells to the sketchbook pages.  First you line up the template along the inside spine of the sketchbook and along the bottom of the page.  Hold it in place while drawing the outlines of the cells. Center lines are available on the template if you would like to mark them on your cells. You can add cells to as many or as few pages as you like, making for a customized storyboard notebook layout with the possibility of other full page drawings located throughout the notebook.  You can store the template inside the notebook between unused pages or inside the back cover and the elastic band around the notebook will ensure that it doesn't fall out between uses.  And if you do loose it or it gets bent or wears out  you can just as easily print out another one.

The storyboard format is handy for more than just planning animation or film layouts.  Print out one of these templates to keep on hand with your Moleskine Large Sketchbook or Classic Plain Notebook for whenever the mood strikes to make a series of sequential drawings, a comic strip, panel cartoons, or just tidy little boxes on the pages to fill with whatever imagery or information suits your needs.

Have fun with the template and let me know how it works for you.  Email or leave a comment if you have suggestions for improvements or additional template formats.

You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to access the template file.  You can download the newest version from the Adobe website HERE.

UPDATE: Be sure to also see this post HERE with examples of the hack template in action.

Technorati Tag: moleskine hacks

Belly Band

Once you acquire a few Moleskines it can be a challenge to tell one from the other based simply on their sleek  black exteriors.  The colored bands that come with the notebooks tend to get mangled pretty quickly, especially if you are carrying it in your pocket or bag.  I have started making different distinctive belly bands as a way to quickly identify notebooks so I know before opening one if it is my ruled notebook or my sketchbook.

Below is my most recent belly band for a new pocket sketchbook.

A friend sent me this wonderful greeting card made by the Bodleian Library that features the spines of a collection of Victorian embossed decorated books from the series The Girl's Own Annual.  The design of the card is long and thin and suggested "belly band" to me right away.  When open the card measures 17" long by 3½" high.  I folded the card to create sharp creases to accomodate the spine of the Moleskine, and made a flap to tuck inside the front cover.  Likewise I made a sharp crease to wrap the card around the back cover. The trick to getting the belly band to stay in place on the notebook is to make a flap that tucks into the pocket inside the back cover. This holds the band in place when the book is open.  I had to trim 1" off the front end of the card so that it would fold inside the front cover of the Moleskine. I also add a dab of restickable glue stick to the flap that tucks inside the front cover to help hold it in place. This is made by 3M /Scotch and is the same type of adhesive used on Post-It notes so it is removable and repositionable.  The heavy paper stock that the card is printed on holds up better than the thin paper of the Moleskine labels, so if you can find a nice decorated piece of card stock you can create a distinctive band in no time.

Cahier Arts & Crafts

Moleskine released the Cahier line earlier this year as a replacement for the Volants.  The Cahiers are the first notebooks to be made without the "moleskin" / oilcloth type cover material that is so recognizably "Moleskine".  The heavy paper covers of the Cahier create a completely new feel to these notebooks, and also provide an opportunity to break out from the basic black color with the introduction of "Kraft" as a cover choice in all sizes and page styles.  This notebook line is styled after European school copy books, and the visible stitching on the spine is a similar construction to the black and white marbled school composition books more familiar to American students.

The light cardboard covers on the Cahiers lend themselves to personalization and labeling in a way that the formality of the classic Moleskine binding material resists.  It is a natural progression to write or draw on the covers, add collage elements, or any number of creative applications to make a distinction from one notebook to the next.

Below are a few examples of Cahier covers that I have added images to:

I use this pocket size kraft Cahier as a book wish-list to carry in my backpack.  I added a picture of lavendar fields that I cut from an advertising post card printed on glossy card stock.  I peeled the glossy image away from the surface of the post card to make it thinner, so that it would glue down easier and not be as bulky.  I cut out the image using an Exacto knife and attached it to the cover material using an Avery acid-free glue stick.  The title "Livres" was added using rubber stamps.

This large size black Cahier is embellished in a similar way.  The image came from a greeting card that I peeled the glossy part away from the rest of the card stock.  I first made a band from metalic origami paper and attached that with the glue stick.  I cut out and attached the central image in the same was as above using a bone folder to get all the little edges down flat.

Since the Cahiers have fewer pages per notebook than the classic Moleskines they lend themselves to specialization.  I keep several on hand for different types of notetaking  so these additions to the covers make identifying one from the other much easier