Category Archives: Articles

Using Different Notebooks

Posted on by
Reply

Quite a few people still use notebooks, it seems. I use them more than most. Unfortunately, most people use them for school. Composition and spiral bound notebooks are the most common everywhere. For most of the people using them, the only distinction between their notebooks is the class they’re used for and maybe the amount of subjects or the color of the cover. I use my notebooks differently. For starters, they are of all different shapes and sizes. Colors and bindings, too. I do have preferences, but I also want to find new preferences.

I use my notebooks based on their type. By that I mean I have a different one for every task. I have one for stories (several actually), one for sketches, one for my “drawing every day” drawings, one for story notes, one for general notes and cartoons, and many others. I’m not sure how many people do this or something similar, but I find it handy to be able to grab a notebook and know exactly what is in it. This over-specialization has backfired and it resulted in me combining several notebooks into one, leaving a few books without a home.

20130611-224857

Those instances are few and far between, though. In general I’ve found it good to specialize my notebooks. If I am doing a certain task I can take a small notebook that is suited for the task instead of a large one that covers everything. It also enables easy referral since I don’t have to constantly search the one and only notebook for something on a specific topic.

It doesn’t just come down to using different same-brand notebooks or even differently sized notebooks. I use completely different brands with completely different styles for my various books. I use Mead, Moleskine, Field Notes, Top Flight, Bienfang, Strathmore, Rhodia, Clairefontaine, and even military-grade Memorandum books. I use all different rulings from blank to dot grid, and I’ve even found a hex grid notebook.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, I just think it’s weird that I use notebooks like this. Is it? How do you use notebooks? Most of the people I know seem to use them in the way I described above, where they just have one that holds every thing. Or a large one and a pocket one. Either way, my giant bag of notebooks I take with me and cycle through my satchel will continue that way. And I will continue to write on paper notebooks. And I will love doing so. And I hope all of you writing on paper notebooks will love it as well.

Games That Teach – Hive and Spatial Orientation

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve all played the classic abstract strategy games: chess, checkers and the like. But those are old games. In that last century board games became a family staple and became more colorful and extravagant. And in the last few decades they have advance tremendously in both fun and art design. The days of any new abstract strategy games coming out seemed to be over. Until, that is, Hive came out and opened up the genre again.

The Pieces of Hive
The Pieces of Hive

Hive has won tons of award and gotten some serious buzz (get it?). It’s an abstract that is even more abstracted because it doesn’t have a board. In theory it is played on an infinite grid of hexagons (which is how the game on the iOS and other devices is played) though this grid can only really be about 30 hexes in diameter because of the limitations of number of pieces.

It is also unique in the fact that it has no piece elimination. None of the pieces you play on the board can be eliminated. And you get to choose which pieces you put out first. The objective is to surround the enemy’s queen bee with six of any color piece. And it’s usually a very short game, the longest I’ve played being about ten minutes.

But in my opinion where hive really shines is in the spatial aspect. Each piece moves differently in the two dimensional plain. There are specific, but simple rules governing where you can and can’t move your pieces. It isn’t always obvious where your next move will be, and predicting your opponent’s move can be especially tricky.

Sample Game Unfinished
Sample Game Unfinished

Now I work with spatial things quite a lot, being a cartoonist and graphic designer. I also like to play chess a lot, though I’m not very good, which requires some spatial orientation. But even I can be baffled by Hive at times. It’s such a simple game, but it makes you think so hard, and that is what good games do. Of course you can play more casually as I and most people I play it with (they’re not very cerebral gamers, or even gamers) want to. But even then it’s still flexing your spatial brain muscle or whatever.

Now like, I said spatial resigning is only good in a handful of jobs (architect, graphic designer, artist) and this game really isn’t a teaching tool, it’s more of a practice thing. It helps you get in the zone for such things and it can really be quite relaxing in doing so. It’s one of those games where you marvel at how the other person won rather than being bitter about the fact that you lost. At least to me it is.

So if you already have one of the occupations I mentioned earlier, or are looking into one, try out Hive, it’s great and it can sometimes really help you and let you enjoy things you’ve learned. And you can brag to the people you beat about how your job actually gave you some skill.

On Drawing Every Day

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been drawing every day for a while now. And I’ve got to say that it’s still pretty fun. I haven’t been going nearly as long as some people, though. I just find it exciting to come up with something different to draw every day. Something to freshen my mind. Every day I get to draw something new and exciting. And if I can’t think of anything, I can always do better at something I tried before, or look at it from a different angle.

My Notebooks almost used up.
My Notebooks almost used up.

Some people would say that it improves your drawing skill to draw all the time. It does to a point, but it depends on how you work it. I, being a cartoonist, prefer simple lines and shapes, so my drawing skill in the detail department hasn’t improved much. But in the time department I’m very much ahead. It takes me less than half an hour to do any given page a day, which is a major improvement over the hour it took before. And even a half hour is still the max: usually it takes ten to twenty minutes.

I started just to keep drawing things. I do cartoons every day and sometimes that gets boring, and sometimes I can forget how to draw some things. This helps with both. Though some days I don’t want to do it, like I don’t want to do everything else, but doing it feels so nice after the fact. Looking back over my sketchbook and being able to see a drawing for every single day is great. Seeing how I’ve progressed, or how much detail I put into one drawing, or the lack of detail that is left for the viewer to fill in, creating a personal emotional attachment.

Though it hasn’t helped me very much in the realm of my drawing skill, it has been a very rewarding experience, and I’m going to continue doing it. It is my hope to at some point amass a library of sketchbooks that I can thumb through. I hope that I do continue and I hope that you reading this will consider doing something similar. Whether it is to improve your drawing skill, just for the  love of drawing, or to get the satisfaction of doing something similar. I will continue to do so and I would love to see other people do so.

On Writing Implements

Posted on by
Reply

Writing. I write a lot. I write quite a lot. I write for the web. I’ve written over 40,000 words of short stories, I’m halfway through a novel (and in the starting phase of several others). I write everyday in some form. Mostly in notebooks from Moleskine to Composition. And while doing all this writing I’ve come across many writing implements. Obviously you have computers (or typewriters) if you always want  things to look plain and boring. But for paper there are hundreds to thousands to even hundreds of thousands of writing tools. And one is free to pick. You can pick any pen or pencil you like, very few are gated by price.

Which one you should choose is a hard question. Do you want cheap ones to have everywhere? Do you want a quality one to last a lifetime? Do you want a thin or thick line? Do you want one that writes more but less easily? Do you want ball, fountain, dip, click, mechanical, sharpened, pen or pencil? There are so many options to consider it sometimes gets overwhelming. Well… most people wouldn’t consider what to write with overwhelming. But if you’re really serious about writing it is.

Well how do you choose? Well… process of elimination is really your best bet. Try the least expensive pens first and work your way up until you get to ones that start to behave like you don’t like or you feel are too expensive to really use. Some people might say, of course, the more expensive pens are better, to which I would respond with the Paper Mate Write Bros. pen which writes better and more accurately for me than many several hundred dollar fountain pens I’ve handled (which to be fair is not many). Those are the pens I personally use for the most of my writing, though I do have several other brands of pens lying around and several fountain pens for using upon occasion.

For me what I’m doing dictates what writing tool I use. Ball points for journals, fountain pen for formal stuff, technical pen for inking et cetera. There are some “standards”, but none that can’t be broken. The really important thing to consider in choosing you writing implement is you. Only what you want matters for what you’re going to write with. No one is going to make fun of your choice and while a few may turn up their noses they don’t really matter.

Writing is an art, and just like all other arts it is personal. So choosing what you write with is important. And choosing the absolute best pen for you is one of the hardest things to really do. So I hope that if you write you have or will soon find the right pen/pencil for you. And I hope you keep on writing.

Moleskine Customer Service

Posted on by
Reply

Moleskine, the company that produces moleskine notebooks under the trademark seems to pride itself in its customer service. This is something they would have to do considering the fact that they are inferior to most other notebook in their price range in most ways. In fact, each Moleskine book comes with a little sticker and a quality control number. If you receive a defective notebook in theory all you have to do is go to their website, enter some info, and they’ll send you a brand new replacement. How does this work in practice? Well, I was unfortunate enough to get a defective book and have to find out.

moleskine problem

The first thing one has to do is go to the website and fill out a form. The questions are fairly easy and harmless.  It does require the QC number and a photo of the defect. It’s all nothing too difficult. Their media uploader needs some work, in my opinion, but I’m uploading content all the time with some of the best uploads in the world so I guess I’m spoiled.

Something a bit misleading here is that they ask for your email address. I thought this would mean that they would send me some confirmation email about whether or not my new book was shipping. I got no such email, I got no email at all. Moleskine has, to this day, never emailed me.

So I sent off my request for a notebook and waited. They guarantee a new book in two weeks so that is how long I did this waiting. Deciding I must have done something wrong (Like enter my email wrong) I resent the request.

The literal next day I got a package in the mail that was my new Moleskine. It had only arrived two days late, which was no big deal, except for the fact that I had just reordered this book.

it was a lot better than this

it was a lot better than this

Now I don’t want people thinking I’m a thief, so I called the customer support at the number on the package (the American distributor for Moleskine) and had them stop my second request. It only took a couple of minutes and everyone sounded very pleasant.

So, does Moleskine live up to the customer support they say they have? Absolutely. I received my a new notebook almost within two weeks of sending in my request (this is understandable because Moleskine is in Italy and I’m in south-west Texas, i.e. beyond the middle of nowhere). The entire process was quick, easy and painless. It would have been even better had it not been for my internet paranoia. So if you do receive a defective Moleskine, know that your problem can be quickly and painlessly rectified.