The idea for this came from Charlie Sorrel. I like the idea of carrying around a moleskine instead of an iPhone, mostly because I like the aesthetics of the Moleskine. They have a great weight and they’re handsome. The iPhone is pleasing in its own way, but it feels slippery. On the other hand, adding the overhead of the Moleskine form factor is a serious liability. So I went into this ambivalent.
I started with the reporter’s notebook, ’cause I like the idea of making it a flip-phone. Also, I don’t actually like the reporter’s notebook form factor for note-taking, so this one had been lying around for a while. It’s grid-ruled, which makes the measuring a little easier.
As you can see, the iPhone could fit snugly inside this form factor.
I started cutting with a knife. Not great. There was a big risk of cutting myself, and it doesn’t look that clean when you’re done. If I had to do it again, I think I’d use a Dremel. As it was, I had to hack with the knife a lot and use the scissors to fine tune. The result was a raggedy, but sufficient for what I’d decided was going to be a proof of concept.
The result: sloppy. Because the hole’s edges are imperfect, and because the 2cm border makes the pages very floppy and unruly, there’s a lot of messiness.
The verdict: next time, use the right tools and it’ll probaby look a lot better. Also, I’m realizing that my instincts were right: putting an iPhone into a moleskine — even a small moleskine — gives it the form factor of a Newton.
a technology job is no excuse 