«Booby traps?»
«Oh, yes. But I found the clues that will safely take us through, in the Chronicles of St. Anselm.»
«But what are they? Can’t you remember?»
«I wrote them down in my Diary so that I wouldn’t have to remember.»
Henry and Indiana Jones in «Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade»
While visiting a mall in Japan, I stumbled upon «Traveler’s Notebook»:
The company kinda reminds me of Globetrotter or Manufactum or similar companies. This particular company has stores in Tokyo (Train station), in Kyoto and two other places:
Their main product is — not surprisingly — a «Traveler’s notebook». Essentially a piece of leather with a string that acts as cover and is used to hold refills (I would call them «insets»).
You can decide on the insets based on your needs (e.g., plain paper, accordion paper, thin paper, etc., but also pockets to hold stuff):
and create your own notebook. E.g.:
or
You can decide to add more than one inset, by the way:
They also offer some other things, e.g., pens (incl. brass fountain pens), pen holders, lanyards to secure the pen, etc.:
or small crayons (other objects so you get an idea of the small size):
Or tiny glue sticks:
There are also pure gimmicks:
So, you can end up with a nice looking notebook:
Overall, they do have a sense of style without going full hipster:
While I am more a fan of travel notepads (see this posting: Click-Bind Travel Notepad), I see the appeal and am eager to try it out. After all, it’s fairly easy to create these insets by yourself. Including ones with pre-printed pages. You just need to take care of the print order, cut the sheets, then put them over each other, use a knife and cut into the fold to create holes for the stapler-tack. Easy.
And without having tried it out, yeah, the small size could work very well. In contrast to a travel notepad, it would allow for full spread images (e.g., a city map). That is something that does not work well with click-bind notepads — the distance between the pages is too great as the click-bind is relatively large.
But I also suspect that a few things do not work that well. The inset with the pockets seems like a good idea, but in practice it means that the pages are no longer smooth. Something to fold out prior to writing would probably be better.
Also, the band that holds the notebook closed … seriously, that’s the way it’s attached:
No way to have a smooth page if the knot it that large. A different one — e.g., a square knot — would likely be much better.
I also wonder about the paper. Doing a lot of walking in Japan’s July/August 35°C+ temperatures with the travel notepad in my leg pocket, sweat became a problem. While it did not soak the notepad, the outsides of the pages got a bit wet. So I wonder whether «Rite in the Rain» paper might not be more useful here. However, while you can write on it in the rain (or the shower), that paper does not work well for fountain pens. Which is a shame because I really like the fountain pen.
On the very negative company policy side, they seem to be using some kind of «gamification» idea. If you buy something you also get a «Stamp Rally Passport»:
The idea is to visit all four shops (and the online shop) — okay — and buy something in each store to get the store’s stamp — dafuq?
While I think that the stamps are a good idea, the execution is badly wrong. For a company that goes for this kind of branding, such a «rally» is a bit … poor. Unworthy. It smacks of desperation. It’s also poison if you are trying for evangelism instead of marketing. I mean, forcing people to buy something? Customers should be happy to buy something — stamp rally or not.
A likely better idea would be to offer stamps for some specific challenges. E.g., visiting different specific areas in Japan, or a specific number of shrines (akin to the goshuin stamps), or the like. Just using, e.g., geographical or thematic challenges. Cooperate with people at the locations who put a stamp into the travelers notebooks, perhaps in a specialized inset (again, like the goshuin stamp books, only with specific challenges). Then visit the store to log that you have completed the challenge by showing the inset. That is a reason to visit a store, but without the obligation to buy something. If the products are good, they will do it anyway. And by putting the completed challenge online — and share it on social media — they will advertise for the company products.
Stamps have the advantage that you cannot get them digitally, only at the physical location (no goshuin stamps on separate pieces of paper — you must be on location and have the inset with you). And the stamps are also something a person at the store can check — and mark as «used» to avoid people selling the inset, after they have logged the completion of that challenge.
And sure, people might get called «stamp collector» as an insult, so it could backfire. But I doubt it. If the challenges are interesting, perhaps a bit off the beaten path, and perhaps with random challenges or specific thematic challenges to chose from by selecting specific insets — could work.
But overall, yeah, such a notebook has potential. And yup, you can easily create your own. Just a piece of leather and a string. And some creative printing for the insets …
Hmmmmm … potential 😉