Livreate

I’ve been looking for the perfect notebook for years. I love college ruled paper for my journals. I love grids for planning things where straight lines are optimal. But I also love being able to draw and doodle when I take notes in my notebooks. Writing without guidelines bugs me, but having those same lines screw up my drawings bugs me even more.

Of course, the normal solution would be to just buy multiple notebooks. I’ve tried that solution my entire adult life. I have tons of notebooks, all of them half filled with notes and sketches. None of them could really handle my imagination and my thirst for knowledge. Not to mention the hours I’ve spent inspecting line spacing and paper weight in store aisles.

A few years ago, I was in one of those store aisles when looking at a poster board gave me an idea. What if there was a notebook that had lines that you could see when you needed them, but faded into the background when you didn’t? I mean, a certain poster company did it. Why haven’t they made notebooks the same way? So I decided to make them myself.

As it turns out, there’s a lot that goes into making my dream notebook. Lots of special inks and printing processes that no one uses anymore. Some companies only do certain parts of the binding, and only have certain supplies on hand. Just trying to translate the weights and calipers of paper is enough to write a thesis. I’ve spent days talking to manufacturers, researching paper stocks and ink composition, patents and printing processes. Binding styles and cover materials. All in the hopes of making the perfect notebook.

So what is the perfect notebook? To me, it’s the notebook that can multitask as much as you do. It has lines that are suited for inscribing your thoughts and dreams and grocery lists. It has grids that allow you to plan out your next product or the optimal Feng Shui arrangement for your living room. And when you’re ready to draw and sketch and doodle, it has plenty of space where the lines are subtle enough to let your work stand out.

The perfect notebook is sturdy enough to support your work, and strong enough to protect it. It lays completely flat when it’s open, and is comfortable to write in whether you’re standing, kneeling, or hanging upside down. It holds up to being thrown into your bag, used as an impromptu umbrella, and being used as a coaster for your coffee mug. The paper in this perfect notebook is thick enough to handle your favorite fountain pens and hot pink Sharpies and katana-sharp mechanical pencil lead. It’s tough enough to withstand all the erasing you could ever do, and still provide a smooth writing/drawing surface for your weapons tools of choice.

That is what I envision when I think of the perfect notebook, and that is what I have tried to create. The Livreate Notebook is the culmination of twenty years of stalking through aisles and oogling journals and notebooks. It’s the product of weeks of testing and tweaking and prototyping, all in the hopes of creating something that would be simple, elegant and highly useful.

The Livreate Notebook is a spiral bound notebook that measures in at 8x10 inches. The cover is made of two millimeter thick chipboard that’s plain on the outside, but super fun on the inside. That cover protects 50 sheets of crisp, 80# acid-free text stock paper that has been lined with a combination of college rule lines and squares. Those lines are printed in the most gorgeously subtle light gray, so that they only seem to be there when you need them.