I saw these on Cult Pens the other day. They look rather interesting. Find them here
Paper Republic, based in Vienna, Austria, believes in paper. They want notebooks and journals to be our companions, like a friend to travel everywhere with you. They make beautiful leather goods to carry and protect your pens and paper, so they’re always at hand when you need to confide in them.
“Treasure your memories on our natural, extra-smooth Swedish writing paper. Feed your imagination with our fragrant leather tanned with plants, herbs and wood in century-old French and Italian tanneries. Explore the world with a travel companion that gets better with age and is made to last a lifetime.”
They develop and create their products in an office and workshop in the courtyard of an old building in the 18th district of Vienna, and collaborate with artisan producers locally and elsewhere. The designs are simple and beautiful. Stylish, by using the minimum of styling. Timeless.
Using Paper Republic Grand Voyager Notebook Covers
For something so simple, it isn’t always obvious how to use these notebook covers. There’s just a sheet of leather and two loops of elastic, though, so how hard can it be?
For one notebook, it’s quite simple – open the notebook in the middle, and slide it behind the longer of the two lengths of elastic inside the cover. When the elastic runs down the middle, where the stitches or staples are, the notebook will be held neatly in place, and the cover will fold around it nicely.
For two notebooks, you can use the shorter length of elastic to hold the second one in the same way, so the two notebooks sit next to each other in the cover.
To hold three notebooks, you’ll need an extra elastic ribbon from the Grand Voyager Ribbon Kit. Fit the first notebook as you would for holding one notebook – just slide it behind the longer part of the ribbon loop. Take the second notebook, and open it in the middle. Put the loop of elastic around the middle – slide it over one half, so it wraps around the spine of the book. Close that notebook, and take the third notebook. Open that one in the middle, and slide it on to the loop at the spine of the second. When you close this one, you should now have two notebooks held together by one elastic loop, holding their spines together. Now hold them flat, so the spines are in the middle, with the back of one and the front of the other facing up. Hold the first book, that’s in the holder already, upright, and slide the second and third books behind it, so all three books’ spines are together. You can now close the cover, and they’ll all stay neatly in place.
The same technique can be used for two notebooks – looping them together with an extra ribbon, then sliding them behind the longer loop – they’ll be held slightly more loosely than the ‘two notebooks’ method above, but they should stay in the right place more reliably than using the shorter loop for the second notebook.
If you really want to pack these covers out, you can fit more books, using the same technique of looping the elastic ribbons behind the cover’s own loop, but it will start to get quite thick!
The Cash and Card Holder, and the Zip Pocket, fit in just the same way as the notebooks. It’s best not to use the smaller loop for the Cash and Card Holder, as the tighter loop tends to damage the card – keep it in the longer loop or using an extra loop to hold it and another notebook.
I’ve been tempted by one of these for a while – and the paper quality looks good.