Re:Custom-printed Moleskine notebooks
by keithpeter on Monday October 28, 2013 @05:58AM
(#6626057)
A local artists' materials shop would offer a range of sketchbook styles (perforated, non-perforated, bright white, cream, and various sizes and weights of paper) and probably be glad of your business if you are the type who buys a whole carton of books at once!
My old University still sells lab books with hard covers and alternate grid and lines. The grid is in green and there is a choice of 1mm/10mm or 2mm/10mm/20mm on the grid (UK). Because all the science undergrads use them the supply can be depended on.
The engineering department in the University where I took my first degree always insisted on us making sketches with a machine pencil and no ruler on plain paper, especially during lectures. Their argument was that you needed to learn to express your ideas in visual form quickly. I wasn't very good at it but stuck with it and tend to prefer plain paper now.
I trust we all back up our better pages with a phone camera or scanner?
I stole the idea from a friend of mine. "I use little notebooks for little ideas, bigger ones for bigger ideas."
He added, "I have a coffee-table sized one at home that I've never written in, because I've never had an idea that big."
That said, recent redesigns by Strathmore have added a perforation to the notebooks. I am old and cranky and cannot tolerate this for some reason, and thus am searching for a new standard notebook. So far a cheap chemistry notebook carried by a local college bookstore looks good, and I may buy a big boxful if they hold up well.
Moleskines are fine, but tiny, and not large enough for doing engineering diagrams.