For my online photo class we are supposed to start a journal. I chuckled a bit because I had already bought one specifically for the class from Kinokuniya. It has zoo animals on it and I thought that it would inspire me to go adventuring with the camera—and back to the SF Zoo. I actually have lots and lots of notebooks, journals, moleskines, etc and between maiki and myself we buy one every time we come across them (he may be worse than me at resisting them ^_^).  I started to realize a while back that I never quite get the opportunity to fill the pages of the journals that I buy before I excitedly purchase another one so I’ve tried to hold back. Also lately I’ve been going back and using them for drawing and doodles that are not project related so they are not going out of sequence.  Anyways when school started I released the ban on notebook shopping and picked out some super cute ones. Here they are: a green Moleskine, a Nantaka Joy scalloped beauty by Joy Cho, and zoo notebook with illustrations by Michiyo Tokuda.

While reading Design Observer I noticed a post from Michael Beirut about his own journaling habits entitled “26 Years, 85 Notebooks.” He likes to use the plain old school composition books, and he completely fills them up before moving onto the next, in a perfect timeline. He carries his notebook with him everywhere and it to jot down ideas, notes to himself, sketches of possible designs, contact information of clients, everything. In the post he also shows pages from his notebooks and discusses how they relate to real work that he has produced. All really interesting stuff!  It is clear how integral these books are to his creative process— and that all these damn thumbnails that I have been forced to draw are really laying the ground work for good design practices. I wish that I had a quarter for every time one of my professors said that “the designer should begin with a pencil and paper and not with a computer and a mouse.” I have the supplies but it can be hard to fight that urge. I guess the reward to myself is shopping for stationary—and becoming a good designer.