I am never a notebook person (except when it comes to work of course!) and do not exactly have the nicest handwriting or sketching. Hence when approached by Moleskine to trial their latest Notebook, I was a little hesitant and worried that I might not do justice for the brand. Finally after some coaxing, I was mailed my very first Moleskine Legendary Notebook & an accompanying Click Roller Pen.
For those of you who are not familiar with Moleskine Notebooks, here’s a quick history lesson. Notebooks similar to the present Moleskine notebooks were a popular standard between 19th – 20th Century Europe. Handmade by French bookbinders, these nameless notebooks became a prominent creative tool for avant-garde artists such as Oscar Wilde, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Henri Matisse who enjoyed drawing, writing, putting down impressions on paper, painting from life and capturing spontaneous scenes, ideas and emotions as they happen outdoors.
The present Moleskine notebook followed closely after Bruce Chatwin’s descriptions of notebooks he used in his travels. This specific type of notebook nearly went into history in 1986 when the last notebook manufacturer, a small family-run firm in Tours discontinued production after the death of the owner. Thankfully a small company based in Milan named Modo & Modo SpA established the Moleskine trademark and resurrected the notebook in 1997 with 5000 pieces.
Today Moleskine hopes to conquer more than just the physical jotting and note taking space. Together with Evernote, they have created The Evernote Smart Notebook, an innovative and powerful tool, which gives you the freedom to capture and create your notes professionally. Here’s a quick video on what’s it all about:
In a nutshell, here’s the 4 easy steps on how to use your Evernote Smart Notebook:
1. Create content on your notebook! Write, draw or sketch something!
2. Use the smart stickers included with the notebook to easily tag & organise contents.
3. Use the Evernote Page Camera available for the iPhone or iPad iOS to snap & digitise. Evernote Smart Notebooks unique “Evernote ruled” & “Evernote squared” page styles with dotted lines are designed to ensure a clean image capture.
4. Visit Evernote to retrieve content anytime by simply searching by keywords, tag, browse or share anywhere with easy access!
To get you started, each Evernote Smart Notebook comes with 3 months Evernote Premium, which offers a number of added features to make your newly digitized, handwritten content more accessible, searchable and shareable. The con however is that you will need to buy a new notebook every 3 months in order to keep your Evernote Premium subscription.
And you get to choose from your preferred Evernote Smart Notebook size as well as the ruled or squared options:
Having gotten the full story, what’s your take on this collaboration? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
You may also like to check out my posts on other interesting digital and social media topics here.
