
Design notebook suggestions? - mechanician
What do you guys use for design and or sketch books?  I know everyone seems to love moleskins, but frankly they've broken down on me in the past.  I also like having larger size sheets of paper to work with.
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jackcheng
The Behance dot grid books are great for layout sketches:
<http://www.creativesoutfitter.com/>

Konigi graph paper looks decent for wireframing:
<http://konigi.com/tools/overview>

As do Whiteline books (you can buy them off Amazon):
<http://www.whitelines.se/en/>

I personally use and recommend Muji recycled ring notebooks. They're
relatively cheap and excellent for quick sketches/journaling:
[http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/note/recycled-paper-
note...](http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/note/recycled-paper-note-double-
ring.html)

For me, anything that'll let me get my ideas on paper as quickly and
effortlessly as possible is the way to go. As long as the notebook doesn't get
in the way, it's perfect.

~~~
weaksauce
Those whitelines notebooks are a great hack on the traditional lined paper. I
like the structure of lined paper but dislike how the drawn lines on the
papers lines make it hard to see. Great find!

~~~
cdr
Cute idea, but $9 for a basic A6 notebook? Eesh.

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diiq
I bind my own. It takes some time, but the result is a notebook that has the
paper I want in it, that lays flat so I can use _all_ of every page (I'm a
lefty), and that I don't spend too much money on.

Moleskines are $$ for a pile of paper. A few minutes and an upholstery needle
and I have graph paper, light-weight blank, and watercolor paper bound
together just the way I like it.

~~~
Hostile
Just out of curiosity, got any pictures of these? Making my own notebook is
something I've considered ever since exploring my pocket notebook options.
Your comment might be the thing that gets me off the fence.

~~~
diiq
Nah, they're pretty dull; the coverboards are usually a clean piece of pizza-
box or a bit of used matteboard. I'll take a pick this afternoon, if you like.

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Kaya
For the past decade I have been using (faux) leather bound, grid ruled
scientific notebooks, first from BookFactory (<http://www.bookfactory.com/>)
and then from Scientific Notebook Company (<http://snco.com/>).

These lab books are designed to document work for patent purposes, but I find
that they are great for all manner of design and implementation writing.

Unlike the cheap shit you find almost anywhere else, the bindings are
incredibly durable, and you can lay them flat, like a spiral notebook. You can
paste printouts directly into some of the larger versions. The quality of the
paper is very high. For a small fee, you can have your name embossed on the
cover in gold leaf.

~~~
patrickg-zill
Thanks for the snco link, that looks exactly like what I was looking for!

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aharrison
Just this morning I literally wandered around Staples for an hour pondering
this exact question. Staples might not be the prime place to look, but it was
the best I had.

Anyway, my requirements were thus: it had to be reorganizable (e.g. your
standard three clip binder), it had to be relatively small (I want to carry it
around in a small messenger bag or even better my versipack) and it had to be
amazingly simple (lined paper only, no calendar, no pockets, no special
latches).

Long story short: every notebook I looked at was absolutely idiotic in some
fashion or another. The reogranizable requirement limited me to like half a
dozen. The simple limited me down to basically two: a standard 1/2" binder or
one of these new fangled "rolla" notebooks, which are absolutely horribly
designed. I ended up going with a simple 1/2" binder, a bunch of paper, and
the hope that eventually someone will solve this problem acceptably so I can
have a reorganizable notebook.

The main benefit of the 1/2" binder is it small: keep only what you need, but
keep it with you as often as possible. Insight comes at odd times, and if you
keep your goals in the binder they will get revisited often, solidifying them
in your mind.

Hope that helps.

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icco
I just use a legal pad. They work great for design, not really sketches
though.

It really depends on what you are doing though. I use a graphpaper spiral
bound book in my bag for long term ideas and designs and then the legal pad
for working with people and sharing designs.

~~~
warwick
My big problem with a legal pad was throwing it into my bag tended to destroy
the top one or two pages.

~~~
maggie
I've had that problem, too. I generally leave the top 2 pages empty and blank
for that reason.

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edwardog
Field Notes + the Marvy Le Pen [<http://www.lythastudios.com/marvy/>] for
walking around and making notes with.

Rhodia [<http://www.rhodiapads.com/>] and Whitelines
[<http://www.whitelines.se/en/>] are great for sit-down work.

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fogus
I LOVE the Rediform composition notebooks. Model 53-108 60pgs. They can be had
on Amazon at [http://www.amazon.com/Rediform-
AVE53-108-RED53108-Compositio...](http://www.amazon.com/Rediform-
AVE53-108-RED53108-Composition-
Notebk/dp/B00007LVEH/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=INRPKT0E08BXR&colid=26UGUDLIBPK3J)

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warwick
Personally I use an artists sketchbook with big pages, heavy paper and a thick
cover. It's too heavy, but the contents are safe and the paper is of the right
texture and unlined.

I generally pick them up at University bookstores where they tend to be cheap
(~$10).

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rflrob
I just use a plain old $1 graph-paper composition book for all my notes and
such. I find them to be much more durable long-term than spiral bound
notebooks, which inevitably seem to end up with the cover just barely hanging
on.

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dan_the_welder
If you want to roll your own most full service copy shops offer several types
of binding.

Before I got a tablet/ebook reader I would regularly print out documentation
and get it 'perfect bound' with a heavy card stock cover sheet.

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reg4c
The best one that I have used so far is a spiral bound deck of A4 sheets of
paper with a hard cover. A bit heavier paper works best.

Benefits: \- Cheap \- Fully customizable \- If you cannot find them then make
them

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joe_bleau
I like Eureka Lab Book (<http://www.eurekalabbook.com/>). Lots of variety,
including waterproof and class 10 cleanroom.

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patrickg-zill
Go to Borders, get the Moleskine knock-offs made by Piccadilly. I found myself
migrating to the larger size instead of the roughly 3x5 inch small ones.

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zandorg
I got a A5 and A6 spiral hardback-bound notebook from Wilkos in the UK. Each
with durable paper, 100 pages, about 70 pence (about 1 dollar).

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zeckalpha
<http://doanepaper.com/>

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hs
back in uni, engineering paper (the green with squares) was expensive so ... i
made my own.

it's really simple, just fire up spreadsheet and resize the rows and cols
respectively, then border them.

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leif
spiral bound blank pages, preferably on the heavier side of medium weight

