Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

Writing a diary made me happier; keeping things-to-do lists made me more reliable (which, in turn, made those around me happier), and I learned never to go to a doctor’s appointment, or a meeting of any kind, without taking notes of what I heard. But there appeared to be creative benefits too. Every artist I met seemed to have a sketchbook to hand,... See more

I showed off my samples, stressing the cream paper, the ribbon markers, and the striking cover designs that supposedly set our brand apart. He shook his head and handed me a familiar black notebook in response. “See this?” he said. “We make them ourselves, own brand. The same size, the same number of pages. We use the same paper, the same boards, w... See more

The buyer eyed me skeptically. “Along with the Moleskines,” he said. “Do you know there’s a section of our customer base that buys a fresh Moleskine every time they come into a store? Once a week, some people. We have no idea what they do with them.”

The leaflet opened with a lie (the new Moleskines were not “exact reproductions of the old”) then immediately veered toward gibberish, but that didn’t matter. Pound for pound, those seventy-five words proved themselves among the most effective pieces of commercial copywriting of all time, briskly connecting the product’s intangible qualities—useful... See more

But in case those cues alone were not enough, Moleskine spelled out its brand values in the small folded leaflet which the notebook’s new owner would “discover”—as Sebregondi tellingly puts it—tucked in the pocket. The leaflet’s copy has evolved over time, and more and more languages have been added to it, but the central message has changed little... See more

The Moleskine is an exact reproduction of the legendary notebook of Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse. Anonymous custodian of an extraordinary tradition, the Moleskine is a distillation of function and an accumulator of emotions that releases its charge over time. From the original notebook a family of essential and trusted pocket books was born. Hard co... See more