Why Is the Basic Marble Notebook Made by So Many Brands Still So Popular? | Adweek

Since no copyright applies to these books, a slew of brands make them: Roaring Spring, Top Flight, Swinton, Norcom, iScholar—the list goes on. And what differentiates these brands? Nothing, and that’s the beauty of it: the marble composition book, a simple, understandable product that costs a few bucks and delivers what it promises.

Nice bit on the classic notebook I’m sure most if not all of us have used at some point in our life. I, too, have a great nostalgia and fondness for these. I have a stack of them in my collection of journals from when I was a teenager.

(via Austin Kleon’s wonderful weekly newsletter which frequently contains links to awesome handwriting/analog articles and posts).

How to Keep a Zibaldone, the 14th Century’s Answer to Tumblr | Atlas Obscura

As the merchants traveled Europe, so did this invention—which, like most good ideas, fused with others that had arisen elsewhere. In Ancient Greece, Aristotle had suggested his students keep scrolls of notes from their studies, organized by subject, so that they could return at will to any topic’s “place.” Renaissance-era teachers resurfaced this idea, and by the 17th century, students at Oxford were required to keep “commonplace books,” organized notebooks stuffed with useful texts from elsewhere.

Interesting history of the practice. I keep a commonplace book of my own and highly recommend it.

Notebooks designed to get you organized — Original Content Books

If you are looking for a notebook to help get you get things done, there is no shortage of great tools available. You don’t even need to spend a lot of money as you’ll see with the bullet journal system you can use any $1.50 notebook. Below are ten notebooks we have selected around the A5 size (5.8 x 8.3inches) and if you are looking for a larger or smaller option, most of the links have more sizes available.

I’ve actually been working on a post just like this one. It is a overview of many of what I’ve come to call “No Brainer” purpose formatted journals and planners that are out there. These typically have built in prompts and systems to better help one reach their goals. I actually have looked at many of these and they can vary greatly in quality of materials but all seem very earnest in their mission.

This post is well worth a read if for none other than to see some things that you might otherwise have never heard of.

Ten Bullets for WSJ by Tom Sachs

Really great and thought provoking handwritten spread by Tom Sachs.

(via Austin Kleon)

Well-Read Life™: The Google Guys Use Paper

Google Ventures’ Jake Knapp created the sprint process that provides the title of the book, which he co-authored with Google Ventures’ John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz. The sprint is a method, as the book’s subtitle promises, to help “solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days.”

To do that, a small group of a company’s key players devotes one full work week to prototyping and testing a new idea. But how do you get these busy people to focus on solutions for just one issue? And for five days?

Ban all electronic devices from the work sessions.

And, as Knapp said in a recent interview, “Start on paper.”

Gmorning!
Cleaning my office.
Here's a bunch of My Shot drafts.
Songs take time. pic.twitter.com/nL5RntS3EA

— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) August 16, 2016

Mr. Miranda tweeted a whole bunch of shots of handwritten lyrics for the hit musical Hamilton today. Including some lyrics that didn’t make the cut. So cool! worth reading through his stream today.

The Write Stuff: How the Humble Pencil Conquered the World — Popular Mechanics

Chemistry was a young scientific field in the 1500s, so the locals couldn’t have known exactly what they found. They did notice one crucial fact about the new material: the graphite made a darker mark on paper than lead, which had been used in styluses since Roman times. So they called it black lead. English people cut graphite into chunks and put it into sticks that could be used to write. They wrapped the sticks in paper or string and sold them on the street. This new tool was called the pencil—a name derived from pencillum, the Latin for a fine brush. Making your mark would never be the same.

An excellent primer on the history of the pencil.