Why composition notebooks

But designers and artists love them just the same. Jean-Michel Basquiat was known for writing in a Mead composition notebook. Eddie Vedder allegedly scribbles his lyrics in one. Aron Fay , another designer at Pentagram, is obsessed with composition notebooks, too. Fay calls his reimagined notebook "Comp.

The pages lined or unlined are smooth and uncoated, with a larger header space for creating a clear visual hierarchy while writing.

Fay replaced the center-sewn binding with a high-quality lay-flat binding, which means no more paper bulge. He covered the exposed spine in a black Italian cialux cloth to increase its durability.

This is especially true with an item the very nature of which is to be consumed, like a notebook. Yes, I could buy an expensive notebook, but it will eventually get filled up and sit on a shelf or actually in the floor of my closet. Guess what — it filled up eventually albeit at a slower rate than would a composition book , but it was a huge, bug smasher of a notebook that was a pain to carry around. It was also lacking in the durability department. By the end of its life, it was well worn, and not in a Wabi-sabi kind of way.

The composition book, as such, is perfect for me because it is super cheap, and each one is basically the same size, weight, shape and durability as the other, no matter which brand you buy.

It is truly an ubiquitous product. One can go to any grocer, drug store, or big box store and find one. If you have kids, you may already have a few lying around the house, as the composition book remains a popular school supply, even in an age where traditional textbooks have been supplanted by the Chromebook. Not only is the humble composition book ubiquitous, it is the Goldilocks of notebooks. There seems to never be quite enough desk space. At the same time, going with something smaller than a composition book like a Field Notes, maybe will not give me enough room on each page.

And Pentagram graphic designer Aron Fay is so obsessed with the bi-chromatic books that he decided to redesign them. The books are especially popular in the United States, but where were they first created? And who designed that distinctive marble cover pattern? The story of the composition book begins way before American companies began selling them to students.

Later, in 12th century Japan, early techniques of paper marbling continued to evolve to produce marbled designs. Later, in the 15th century, marbling made its way westwards. In the 19th century, marbling became widely popular, and was frequently used in England for decorating book covers, end papers, and even the edges of books.

Paper marbling is labor-intensive. Typically, it involves pigments being dropped into water and manipulated with brushes before a piece of paper is placed on top to absorb the resulting pattern.

By the s , cheaper and more cost-effective methods of creating marbled paper were devised, known as pseudo-marbling.