My Brand Affinity: Moleskine

Pictured above: [Left] Moleskine 2009 Daily Planner, [Right] Moleskine Pocket Squared Notebook, and [Bottom Right] Large Plain Moleskine Notebook.

If you know me you should know about Moleskine Notebooks. I've used them since early 2007 [I forgot how I learned about them...] and since then I've only purchased these brand of notebooks for different purposes. Here I give reasons why I use them but I will not provide arguments against it. I'm sure you can make your own but feel free to leave those arguments by commenting. =)

To sum up why I like Moleskine notebooks, I'll pretend this is what my 1st notebook said to me:

"Hi. I'm Moleskine and I'm a high quality notebook. I'm sorry that you have to pay anywhere between $7-18 but surely you won't be sorry when you use me. I'm redundant I know because I always include the "history" of me in the form of a piece of paper but this is just to remind you who used me before--Hemmingway, Leonardi Di Vinci...--and now you! Look, you know that whole Mac vs PC argument and which is better? I know, computers are computers... as long as you can connect to the internet, make a word document, hook up your iPod, burn CDs.. blah blah they're the same right? Well I'm sure you'd be comfortable using a PC because simply it works. But you'd tried a Mac right? Tell me if you'd go back to PC. Yea, I thought so.

Same applies here buddy.

I just look better and it makes you feel better when writing down anything. Stopped writing? It's ok, use my cloth bookmark to keep your place next time you open up. Have business cards, emergency money/check, pieces of loose paper? Put them in my pocket in the back. And when you're finally done, use the elastic band to secure me so the book doesn't open up, let loose if anything, and get messed up.

It's really up to you to buy me. I can see why people don't get me: I'm expensive, 'it's just a notebook,' blah blah..

Look, if you simply are open-minded, have a habit of jotting ideas, quotes, like to draw, and all that good stuff worth remembering, I'd give me a try.

And oh, you know how people can easily distinguish a Mac out of the crowd? I too am recognizable but only to those who understand the concept of having a fine notebook that will last."

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I started my planner early March of this year to get away from using my Palm Centro's calendar. Low tech is still good tech. Reason why I opted to use a pen-paper planner is 1) it is a good way to reflect on the day [aka used as a journal] and 2) simply cool to "flip" through your life and see what you've done and what you're going to do.

I've consistently used the pocket squared notebook since the day I started using these notebooks and here I use its graph paper to jot down ideas, book titles I'd like to buy/read, plans, diagrams, and even used for notes in class if I didn't bring in paper. This is also my work of labor project Nonage was born--premise, cover concept, list of the photographed, and even the total number of books ordered and final costs. My reason for keeping this kind is that not only it helps keep record of me but also I will soon have a collection on my book shelf.

The following images are excerpts from my "Visual Book" created with a large plain notebook. I subscribe to more magazines that I can keep count of and this is where the most important articles/images from those magazines become archived here as a scrapbook. I've clipped meaningful quotes, articles on how-to in photography and business, and inspiring images. All are cited by noting the author/artist and magazine [including month/issue] it was published in.

Knowledge is power and definitely this book is that.