You don’t have to follow too many designers on Twitter for too long before seeing Moleskines touted as the ultimate in note-taking, sketching or idea capturing.
I tried Moleskines for a whole year – even dubbed it ‘the Moleskine Experiment’™ – using a week-to-view notebook, a squared notebook for wireframe thumbnails and a blank notebook for sketches.
After a couple of weeks in use however, for me they became… just another notebook. The quality of the paper became immaterial, the ideas no better or no worse for being committed to Moleskines. I also discovered something cheaper of comparable quality – the ASDA executive notebook (reviewed here and here) that offered a similar feel, quality and, if you must, “experience” that a Moleskine offers for around a third of the price.
Moleskines are a meme amongst some designers; you’re not a real designer until you’re using them, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m no hater. Moleskines are more than pleasant to the touch and there’s no disputing their quality. They have managed to establish themselves as the Apple of the notebook world and for that, I congratulate them.
For the record though, the Moleskine Experiment™ ended with the conclusion that notebooks shouldn’t be that expensive. To paraphrase a previous post: if a particular brand of notebook makes you more productive, buy it. If you think it makes you more creative, you’re doing this whole design thing wrong.