CARMINE MAGAZINE

If you’re an office supply slash art supply addict like I am, you probably have a lot of notebooks that look nearly identical laying around. I know I have about 10 to 15 different Moleskine notebooks of different shapes, sizes and colors around my apartment right now. Most of them are the standard small, black, hardcover style books which makes it very hard to glance quickly at my notebook pile, grab my sketchbook and leave. I have to open each book and look at the pages in order to determine which of these uniform notebooks is my lined paper notebook for notes, which one is my plain paper for drawing and which one is my story board notebook for that comic book I was going to do about six months ago, but then lost track of.

I was looking around the web, trying to find some solutions for helping me stay more organized with my 2009 Moleskine planner when I stumbled across a rather amazing site that made me gasp and exclaim, “I have to post about this on CarmineMag!”

The site I am speaking of is called Modofly.net Modofly.net takes plain Moleskine notebooks* and etches artwork onto the books with lasers. They then sell these books in their store for $22.00 (small notebooks) to $36.00 (large notebooks). They have multiple Moleskine styles available in both sizes: Ruled, Sketch, Squared, Reporter & Watercolor. They have over 50 artists working with them right now and seem to always be accepting applications from new artists. Some of the artists they are working with include:

• Travis Louie
• Molly Crabapple
• Giselle Gonzalez
• Kiriko Moth

  Here are some of my favorite notebooks that I have seen on there so far:
  

  
  Kevin Evan’s “Enlist” (Editor’s Note: I am a huge fan of George Orwell’s 1984, so it made me quite happy to see this piece turned into notebook form!)
  
  Ben Stirling’s “They Are Always Watching“
  
  Travis Louie’s “Candletop Hastings“
  
  Brian Taylor’s “Delinquent“
  
  Giselle Gonzalez’ “Bonjour“

  For information on submitting your artwork to be carried on Modofly.net’s notebooks or carrying Modofly’s notebooks in your own store, please check out their contact page.

  * Moleskine Notebooks contain PVC in their covers, because of this Modofly are looking into different types of notebooks to carry, or a way to convince Moleskine to change their products. A warning from Modofly’s official blog:

  WARNING TO THOSE BURNING MOLESKINES! Do not burn them without the appropriate Purex filter that is made for burning PVC. Burning without it you are exposing yourself to harmful gases and particulates. You will also destroy your laser cutter. There is no way around this right now. None of the machines are coated to deal with the Hydrochloric Acid produced by the chlorine gas and moisture when burning.