I just recently picked up two new Moleskines for my collection. Moleskines are kind of the ultimate artsy-fartsy accessory. I have quite a few of them, and I love them for more than the status symbol that they convey as an object. They are beautifully designed notebooks, and speak to a certain aesthetic, which I happen to hold quite dear.
Simple, small, practical and pleasing to the touch. My preferred versions are the larger side-opening note pads, small sketch books and the hardcover day planner (although I don't use it for day planning, because it doesn't quite fulfill my needs on that). I'm going to focus here on the side-opening note pad, because it's the one that I've managed to complete the most of (I think I'm up to 4 now in the last 2 years).
Some features I like: the texture of the paper, the fact that the binding opens all the way up to allow you to cover every square inch of the paper (and to make full layouts if you so desire), the pocket in the back, the last few pages with perforations so you can rip them out if you need to give a phone number or a open or a sketch, the elastic band which stretches just enough to fit a pen inside, and the fact that the notebook itself is just about the length of a pen, so you're not adding any extra space by hooking your pen in that way.
What don't I like about these Moleskines? Not much. Basically the same things I dislike about all other forms of handwritten notebooks: it's hard to write when you're in the first pages because your wrist raises off the table, the slipperiness of certain inks and the blotting through for some types of inks on the reporter paper, the fact that I never have anything of any value to write about. Otherwise, what is there to complain about? It's simple, well thought-out and customizable—the way I think most consumer objects should be.
Speaking of customizable, I use the day planner as a daily journal: two sentences each day about my reflections, and a sentence of reflection. In the opposite page, I reflect on the whole week with some terse statements and feelings about what I've experienced. This leaves a lot of stuff I haven't figured out how to use in the planner: personal data, address book, travel planning. I have started using the yearly planner to write in the big events of the year, so I can either plan in advance or document them in just one word. It's a work in progress.
