Moleskine recently launched the Folio Collection, a new series of large format notebooks, sketchbooks and accordion portfolios. Aimed at the fine art and design communities, the line simply scales up the classic hardcover Moleskine to either the standard A4 format (8.25″ x 11.75″) or to an impressive A3 format (11.75″ x 16.5″). Both sizes feature the traditional rounded corners, back pocket, elastic closure, and internal bookmark of the familiar pocket and A5 lines and the paper used in all Folio Collection products is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified.
Plain Notebook: 176 pages, available in A4 and A3 format
Ruled Notebook: 176 pages, available in A4 format only
Grid Notebook: 176 pages, available in A4 format only
Sketchbook: 96 large pages in high quality heavy paper, available in A4 and A3 format
Watercolour Album: 60 pages, heavy paper, 200 gsm, cold pressed, available in A4 and A3 format
Portfolio: six accordion-style, available in A4 and A3 formats
A4 format in all styles: $39.95
A3 format in all styles: $49.95
_________________________________
To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Stabilo Boss Original Highlighter
✍ 1971: Dr. Hans-Hoachim Hofmann
The introduction of the Stabilo Boss highlighter in 1972 represented the invention of an entirely new product category. The Boss was the first overwriting highlighter, created to exploit the properties of what were, at the time, newly developed fluorescent inks. Stabilo claims that the distinctive oblong shape, which will not roll off a desk, was the result of an anonymous industrial designer having squashed a conical clay prototype in frustration. Well, perhaps. What is undoubtedly true is that Schwan-Stabilo recently had their German trademark on the product’s unique shape upheld in a case against the Beifa Group, a Chinese look-alike manufacturer. As with Kenji Ekuan’s iconic Soya-sauce bottle for Kikkoman, the form of the Boss is synonymous with the brand.
Stabilo Boss Highlighter, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red or Pink: $1.99
And now a more Swipe-o-centric note about highlighters:
Swipe alumni and Canadian art ortus astrumDerek Sullivan has, for several years, collected used copies of one specific college English Lit. text: Gulliver’s Travels. In the process, Sullivan has compiled an informal typology of idiosyncratic highlighting and marginalia, with the patterns of congruity and variation, both academic and personal, standing in for the anonymous reader. How (or if) this material will ever become art remains to be seen. Derek’s work is also the subject of a newly published catalogue, We May Be Standing on the Shoulders of Giants but Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars, which documents a solo exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge last spring. Beautifully designed by the ubiquitous The Office of Gilbert Li, the catalogue does surprising justice to Derek’s unassuming oeuvre. (2009: Southern Alberta Art Gallery; ISBN 9781894699426)
We May Be Standing on the Shoulders of Giants but Some of Us Are
Looking at the Stars
2009: Derek Sullivan & Pamela Meredith
$19.95
_________________________________
To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Greeting cards are among the last examples of formulaic civility that remain in widespread use. Noting the recent explosion of interest in handmade objects (twenty-something knitters on the TTC and the whole Etsy universe) we at Swipe see a desire to revive traditional cultural forms and modes of sentimental expression. And we like it! We offer three categories of greeting cards here at Swipe: letterpress-printed cards by small manufacturers, where possible; note cards with designs by graphic designers represented in the books we sell; and relatively inexpensive offset-printed cards, locally designed and manufactured.
The most recognizable of the letterpress producers we carry, Hello Lucky was founded in San Francisco in 2003 by sisters Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, offering custom social stationery printed on a vintage Vandercook (though one imagines that most of their production is now job printed). Regardless, H.L.’s designs and concepts are the best we’ve seen, incorporating vintage cuts and digital revival wood type in a completely fresh and clever way.
Snow & Graham Letterpress Cards(e.g. Congratulations / Robin)
One of the first in the market and still among the most successful of the new American letterpress card manufacturers, Snow and Graham of Chicago (founded in 1998), produces smaller unique cards in a readily identifiable fussy but kinda’ sweet style, often featuring patterns assembled from typographic ornaments.
Hello Lucky Letterpress Card with Envelope: $5.95
Snow & Graham Single Letterpress Card with Envelope: $4.95
Snow & Graham Box of Six Note Cards and Envelopes: $15.95
Now, this is the real deal: a designer in Hamilton, Ontario hand-printing on an antique press on 100% post-consumer recycled stock. Local, handmade and super cute.
Sweetbeets Letterpress Occasion Card with Envelope: $5.50
Sweetbeets Letterpress Notecard with Envelope: $3.95
Originally created in the early 70’s for the Herman Miller™ Environment Enrichment Panel program related to the Action office system, these lovely folk-art-inspired images now grace inexpensive blank notecards.
Charley Harper Single Notecard with Envelope: $2.95
Charley Harper Box of 20 Notecardsand Envelopes: $18.95 (Wave, Curlycue, Clicker, Blossoms, Dots & Spots, or Paisley) David A. Carter Single Notecard with Envelope: $2.95
David A. Carter Box of 8 Notecards and Envelopes: $21.95 (Very Long Hello, Beguiled by the Wild, or Winging It) Alexander Girard Single Notecard with Envelope: $2.95
Alexander Girard Box of 20 Notecards and Envelopes: $18.95
Kate and Birdie Occasion Cards
✍ 2008: Gloria Wall
Founded by lead designer Gloria Wall in Winnipeg in 2007, Kate and Birdie offers carefully designed, offset-printed greeting cards. With the volumes produced by the large American letterpress greeting card outfits, claims that their cards are “hand printed” are basically meaningless. While they are offset, at least Kate and Birdie cards are locally printed on 100% recycled stock with renewable power.
Kate and Birdie Single Occasion Card with Envelope: $4.50 Kate and Birdie 8 Boxed Cards and Envelopes: $15.95
_________________________________
To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
While it’s something of a cliché to pose questions like “Is paper obsolete?” or “Is letter writing a dying art?”, friend of the store Sheree-Lee Olson does, to her credit, acknowledge in her column in this Saturday’s Globe and Mail that paper and electronic media serve different purposes and can co-exist peacefully. And, despite dire predictions, at Swipe at least, there is today more demand for high quality, workaday paper products than at any time in the past 20 years. Between Moleskine, Rhodia, Nava and Whitelines, we have scratchpads, steno pads, cahiers and notebooks to suit just about any need.
Rhodia Pads
✍ 1932: Henri & Robert Verilhac
Equally at home in a school bag or the breast pocket of an Armani jacket, Rhodia is the orange notebook from France with the cult following. In sizes ranging from 3″ x 4″ to full A4 (12″ x 8″) Rhodia pads feature quality paper printed with a 5 x 5 grid and an innovative scored front cover that folds neatly behind the pad while writing
Whitelines Pads and Notebooks
✍ 2006: Olof Hansson
An innovative and patented note paper system from Sweden, Whitelines, as the name implies, offers notebooks, pads and cahiers, in “A” sizes, with white lines instead of black or blue. The lines drop out of a very pale grey printed background such that text and drawings are not obscured by the lines on which they sit. The toned background also reduces eyestrain and allows for clear photocopies, with the faint lines fading out when scanned or faxed.
Rhodia Pads: $1.60 to $8.50 Whitelines Pads and Notebooks: $2.95 to $22.50
Moleskine Notebooks
✍ c.1890: Traditional / 2000: Moda & Moda
What haven’t you already heard about Moleskines? Blah blah Bruce Chatwin, blah blah Hemingway, blah blah Matisse. In truth, the last quality French manufacturer ceased production in 1986, with Italian stationer Moda & Moda reviving the product a decade later based solely on the description in Chatwin’s unaccountably influential Songlines. Overstated history aside, what is actually appealing about the line is the range of interior formats available, from blank, grid and lined note paper, to heavy sketch and watercolour paper, to musical staff, diaries and even storyboard layouts. As an illustration we’ve linked to Ross Lovegrove’s contribution to Moleskine’s Detour project in support of non-profit literacy foundation lettera27.
For most interior formats: small $15.95, large $23.95
So typical of Nava (and, more broadly, of Italian design) this gorgeous little group of notebooks is as much a conceptual piece as a practical object. Which is not to say that it is not perfect for sketching, doodling, list-making, and jotting. A page a day, a book a month, and 12 books a year. If you’re into ordering your world sequentially, the punched holes on the fore-edge of each book will satisfy the urge: one hole, January; two holes, February; three, March; and so on through December. Oh, and the dots look cool even if you’ve got a less linear personality
Nava Notepad: Minerva
✍ 1984: Norbert Linke
In 1984 Norbert Linke created Minerva, a pretty little pocket notepad with a matchbook folded cover that quickly became a cult object in Europe and the UK
Nava Saffiano Minerva Notebook Holder
✍ 2008: Nava Design & Beat Box
Nava and Beat Box now offer a fine leather cover to luxe up the modest Minerva. It comes with a cute mini pen designed by the extremely talented but famously grumpy Enzo Mari (which is available separately for $14.95 as a ballpen or pencil).
Nava Notebooks: One Year Of White: $47.95 the set
Nava Notepad: Minerva: $3.25 Nava Saffiano Minerva Notebook Holder in black or orange: $94.95
_________________________________
To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Swipe Books on Advertising and Design is located at 401 Richmond Street West, at Spadina, a truly landmark building in the heart of Toronto’s design district. Much larger than our previous premises, our current store boasts room enough for every graphic design and advertising book worthy of shelf space and a thoughtful selection of well-designed product. Canada's only advertising and design bookstore, Swipe Books is also the official bookstore of the RGD (Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario) and the ADCC (Advertising and Design Club of Canada).
Swipe is open weekdays 10am to 7pm, Saturday 11am to 6pm, closed Sunday.
Swipe is pleased to announce the opening of a shop-within-a-shop in our beautiful store at 401 Richmond Street West. BUILT Books on Architecture will offer the city's largest selection of books and journals on architecture and urban issues, from theoretical and technical reference works to beautiful monographs on today's leading local and international practices. BUILT is hoped, in the fullness of time, to fill the void left by the recent closure of the venerable Ballenford Books.
