Editing The Pen Addict 179/transcript (section)

== Traveler's Notebook ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Live and in person. That would be cool. Yep. We'll have to work on that. We'll work on it. We actually have some Field Notes to talk about today. Always. You showed me something new today that we're going to talk about here in a few minutes. But the first show, you put together a bunch of show notes for today, and I was actually super surprised you put this first one in. So I'm going to let you lead this off.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I saw a link to this lovely article on the Pen Addict. This is from The Final Points. This is Jenny Mason's site. And Jenny took some time to write about and photograph her Midori Traveler's notebook, right? Yeah. Yeah. She kind of documented her setup. And for me, really, I just wanted to link to this for the beautiful photography and the beautiful images of Jenny's diary. Yeah. And what she does with her diary is it's really, really fantastic. So I kind of just wanted to point people towards there because I'm very, very jealous of her ability to do this stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. I took a lot out of this article, actually, which is why I reposted it or I think I tweeted it out when she did it. And this is a wonderful post that she did. You're right about the photography. And the images I keep coming back to are the same ones that you do on just the calendar piece of the article. She's like, oh, yeah. On each day has like what about an inch vertically worth of space or so, maybe an inch and a half at the most. And on each of those little days, say like October 19th, she kind of almost like sketchnoted her day and has, you know, some text about the things that she did, some handwritten text. And then some little images of some other things that she did. You know, like she picked up her iPhone one day. So there's a little picture of the iPhone. You know, she was in front of the computer a bunch of the day. She has her head in front of the glowing computer screen. It looks like a Pulp Fiction briefcase scene to me. But I just think it's funny. And it's super cool how she did all this. And I took a lot out of this because I'm one that has difficulty capturing the small things that I do in a day. Right. I feel like for me to write it down, it's got to be some important big thing. But, you know, she has just like these little things, you know, like Dawson's Creek, Dawson's Creek season four marathon. Boom. Put it down. You know, and I never do those little small things. And I appreciate how she did all this and how she set it up. Because I actually carry my traveler's notebook in my backpack every day. But I don't use it that much. I love the setup. I love the shape, the layout, the customization that you can do. I do use it for a few different things. I have some like blog notes in one notebook. And then I have, you know, Nock planning in another notebook and things like that. But I end up using just like my Nock pocket notebook or a field notes most of the time. Just the single notebook instead of using like the one big Midori. So I'll see next year how it goes. And I'll report back because I'm going to use the Hobonichi for 2016. And so I'll see if I have any place for the traveler's notebook as well. So, and you don't have a traveler's notebook, right, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't have one of these. I have the Pele Journal. Right, right. Which aesthetically is very similar. But I have the small one. Right. But I don't use it. Did the Pele Journal riff off the Midori? Was it the other way around?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, the Pele riffed off the Midori.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And it's different, but very, very similar. Exactly. Kind of look and kind of execution. But that was way more meant for, I think, single or two notebooks where the Midori is kind of designed to be like, you've got to stuff as much in here as you can.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And Jenny put at the end of her post links to a bunch of other people who use these regularly. It's definitely, the traveler's notebook is a thing, right? It's like you go online and there's tons of resources about this specific setup for the traveler's notebook. It's actually such a big thing. Midori is actually breaking out the brand completely online. It's just going to be traveler's notebook. It's not going to be Midori traveler's notebook anymore. I like that brand. Yeah, it's become that big of a thing to where it's just going to stand on its own, which is very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's very smart because Midori doesn't really mean anything to a majority of people. So you've got to really kind of push and stand on what makes you different. And this definitely is it. And of course, Jenny links to Patrick Ning, who we spoke about many times on the show. And when I look at his setup, I get scared for the thought of like, what if you lost that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's what really worries me about why I'm very hesitant to really go all in on a system like this is if you lost that book, that's like your life.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, think of it from Patrick's perspective. And I mean, this is me putting words into his mouth, but it's part of his life. It's basically an extension of him. It's going to be like, how many times have you lost your wallet?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, this is exactly the idea of why I always say to people, like, if you keep losing pens, buy one that's like $20 because you won't lose it. Right. But there's still just like the fear because if you lose your wallet, right, that's fine. You can replace everything. Like there's no memories or anything lost. So it's not like with the frequency of how often you could lose it. But if you did, everything you would lose. It seems like such a big loss. You know, like it seems like so much of people's lives go into these things. And that just it just kind of terrifies me to my core.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I completely understand that. And I just think of when I look at someone like Patrick, it's just such a huge part of his life that it would be, you know, if he was at a coffee shop and working on his in his traveler's notebook and he got up and left, it would be like he left his left arm behind. Yeah. You just don't leave your arm laying behind there in the table. It's that much of a part where it's just not some random piece that gets left behind. Like you might leave your pen on the table, but, you know, you're not going to leave the traveler's notebook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I guess one of those things when I stand up to leave from somewhere, I pat my front pockets and back pockets, you know, just 100% make sure that I've got everything. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then I get in the car and I do it again and get to where I'm going and do it again. Yeah. I'm super anal about that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You should see what I'm like when I go on plane journeys. Mm-hmm. And I, the amount of times I check where my passport is. Oh my gosh. Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. I'm totally with you on that. I'm, I am super, super crazy about that. So, and I never forget, but, um, I do, I do send myself into a bit of a tizzy about checking everything. So it's like, you know, you're not going to forget it, Brad is like, yeah, but you know, I still need to check it 10 times. So, but, um, the Midori has always been a fascination of mine and, uh, we'll, we'll continue to talk about it as the days and years go on. Because it's, it's such a cool system. Um, another cool system we love, which really in the system, it's just a, it's just a thing is our, is our, is our field notes. We love our field notes. And did you have a chance to catch, uh, Aaron Draplin on Mark Maron's WTF podcast? Did you listen to that episode?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's high up in my, my, uh, overcast queue, but I've not gotten to it yet. Is it good?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's real good. I actually just caught it. I just finally got to it on like Friday or so last Thursday or Friday. It's really good. I actually, when I was listening to it, you know, Aaron, Aaron is, you know, laugh out loud, funny. I mean, just the stuff he says, he cracks me up and, you know, just kind of his, um, the way his conversation flows. And, you know, a lot of the things he talked about with Mark, part of their podcast was like, Mark has no clue who Aaron is. Right. I mean, that's not in his, in his realm, but you know, he got to know Aaron a little bit over the past few months and he was actually in Portland recording the show. And, um, so they kind of, you know, riffed back and forth on that, just learning about Aaron. So it's a lot of things we know already, you know, and some of the stories that Aaron tells, you know, fans like ourselves have heard. Um, and then he drops in nuggets, like, um, when they were, Mark was trying to figure out about like the paper products, like field notes. And Mark's like, yeah, I've used like moleskin before. And Aaron's like, no, no, no, I don't use the M word around the shop. And, and I just, I wrote that down and tweeted it out. Cause I just thought it was priceless. And, uh, that fits into like the things that we talk about all the time. And I just thought that was hilarious, but you know, it's, it's a lot of back and forth banter like that. And, uh, you know, Aaron telling stories about how, um, you know, how he came to be, how all this, how his work came to be and things like that. And did you, did you know Aaron's working on a book?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't know that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. For next year, he's, um, he's, he doesn't talk about it like directly a lot, but he said it several times. I've heard him say it in several places. Like I'm working on a book.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh man, that'll be sweet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So in 2016, he's got a book coming out. Um, I forget the name of the author that's done it, but he's done other series of, you know, design oriented type books. And then, you know, that's what, it's not like a biography thing. I think it's like a design type thing, right? Um, like a showing of his work. If I'm, if I'm understanding what Aaron said so far.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I would prefer that to a written book. Like I want something that is there to, to highlight and show to me, um, a handpicked selection of Aaron's favorite work. That's what I want to see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I would too, because, you know, we're such fans of Aaron's, you know, like I, I read all his interviews and listen to all his podcasts and watch all his videos. Like, I know a lot of the stories, right? You know, when, when you're a speaker, like he does, not only is he a designer, he's a speaker. Well, you give the same speech, you know, he's, I think he's did it like 40 times last year or the year before, you know, it's a lot of the same running threads and you don't need that in a book. Right. So it's, it's, it'd be cool to see like, you know, more design stuff and more process stuff and things like that. So it's, it's definitely worth a listen to. Um, they, they did a good job on the podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool. I've got, I'm looking forward to checking that one out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So then you compile these show notes and then, you know, it's like, Oh good. We need to talk about that Draplin thing. And then you throw in this link under this. So, so how did you come across this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I saw Ginny at three staples tweet this and it's a Instagram photo. It's not her photo. It's taken by somebody called Dwayne King of a special edition field notes that I've never seen. And I hadn't come across them ever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You, when you linked it, I clicked over there and I was like, I have never seen this, never heard of this, never laid eyes on it. Never had any, you know, heads up from any of the field nuts group. Um, it's 0.0.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, I don't, what, I don't know what that is. That's, I don't know if that was a conference or something. It was an edition of a thousand.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So the guy who posted these is a guy called Dwayne King, who is a designer and he put on a conference in Brooklyn that these were a part of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So it looks, so they're a pastel color. Think Easter, you know, like pink, light blue and purple. Um, but the covers are debossed. Um, I think that's the right term. Someone will correct me. Uh, embossed is where the, the cover is like pressed in like the lettering. And this is like the raised lettering on the covers, right? I think that's called debossed. So you feel it like on the outside. So like all the field notes logo is raised. Um, any of the design work is, is raised. Like there's some little circles and dots on the, on the back cover. Um, they're all raised up. They're really good looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And then they've got the 0.0 conference. I believe it was called. Yeah. 0.0 conference was at 0.0 in Brooklyn. And they've got the logo, um, on the back. Now, what scares me about these is how incredible they do actually look and they are super limited and nobody seems to know about them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, and then Dwayne says in his Instagram that, oh, we found some laying around. So we're going to sell them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. If you read down the, if you read down the, uh, the comments, um, so I'm sure, um, all the field nuts, uh, are, are all over that, but, uh, it's a cool addition. I love the embossed and debossed, uh, covers. Those are some of my favorite. Um, anytime you, you get kind of that texture on the, uh, on the covers, those have often been some of my favorite additions. Um, either the, just the regular colors or any, um, any side additions, which most of them don't have that level of cover detail. If you will, most of them are just printed somehow, you know, printed, fancy printed, beautiful printed, stamped foil, whatever, but don't have the, um, don't have the depth of the, uh, embossing and debossing, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. You see that like on the grass stained green Raven's wing, um, some of those older additions. Um, so anytime I see that, I think it's pretty cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I think there's a yellow one, a blue one and a pink one. Hmm. Nice. Easter. Very good looking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So we'll see. I'll be interested to see if someone like we know, like in the field notes groups actually gets their hands on one. And I'd like, I'd like to see the interior of them more and, um, kind of, uh, kind of see what they're all about, but I'm not chasing them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, neither am I.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, no.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh, I do actually have some of those Nixon ones on the way. Oh, cool. Yeah. Those are really pretty. Ginny helped me out with that. Cause you know, they were shipping in the U S only.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, Aaron actually talks about that in, in WTF that he was one of, I think he was one of like an original, like Nixon graphic designer, like didn't work for Nixon, but did some of their early work way back in the day, um, as far as design work goes. So that was a good little tidbit that I caught on the podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm. There you go. Mm-hmm.