July 22nd 2012 I will descend upon the Alamo Drafthouse Slaughter to sit in a 40 seat theater for 15 hours. During this odyssey I will expand my knowledge on film via the BBC4 Series A Story of Film: An Odyssey. Lars Alamo suggested we bring notebooks to furiously write down everything that we learn. In an attempt to pre-organize my thoughts without making my own book (which I can do), because it is time consuming, I bought a Moleskine and sought out hacks to make it my own and to serve my own purposes.
The Book
Moleskine Hardcover Ruled
The Cover
So blank, so many things you can do to a simple cover. A trip to Hobby Lobby was in order and in less than $15 worth of pens and craft glue I was ready to modify my cover.
Items Used:
Silver Paint Pen
Black Sharpie – Fine
Cardstock Paper
Brochure Paper
Laser Printer
Craft Glue
Craft Glue Brush
Paper Towels
Xacto Knife
Self Healing Knife Pad
Metal Ruler
Pencil
Black Gel Pen
Masking Tape
I hunted for images on Google Image for a while. I knew I wanted a black and white photo, which are options on Google Images. I thought maybe a nice Noir image, but I couldn’t find one large enough to give me the DPI I wanted. I eventually ended up going with Robot Maria from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. It seemed fitting and is one of my top 5 movies. I modified the image a little bit in Photoshop to make the background as black as I could to match the black cover. I then printed the image on to brochure paper. I used an xacto knife to cut out around the robot and left a lip at the bottom that I would fold under and glue later. I then positioned the image on the cover and drew around it with the pencil and using the craft glue and brush filled in the area on the cover and also put glue on the paper and slid the image into place. Using a damp paper towel I removed excess glue. I folded the excess paper and did the same on the inner cover. This is where you have to be careful, because you can glue your book together.
After choosing the image the font was easy. DaFont.com is my favorite place to go for fonts. I can spend hours, but all I had to do was type “deco” into the search box and I immediately had what I needed. I used Photoshop to get the text the way I wanted it and printed it out on cardstock paper. I spent some time cutting out each of the letters. It is not for the impatient to sit for hours cutting out letters. The final result is worth it. I then used masking tape dots to hold the template in place and used a silver paint pen to put in the title. The silver paint bled a little so I used a fine tip Sharpie to cover over any spots and around the edge of the image where the white paper was showing through.
On the back I chose to use the silver paint pen to list most of the directors who are mentioned in the BBC4 Series, but I added a few of my own at the bottom since I still had room and some of my favorites aren’t mentioned in the series. The list of films and directors mentioned by episode are on the Wikipedia page for the series.
The Inside
Being the linear thinker that I am I needed a defined space for each episode. I started by numbering my pages for indexing using the pen I will be using for my notes. It’s a Black Gel Pen. I left some pages in front and have 6 individual pages (2 sides) for each episode. Using my xacto knife and metal ruler I evenly cut out 15 tabs in sections of 3. Leaving the back for more notes and indexing. I labeled each tab with the episode number and the years it covers.
Contemplation
There are two more hacks I want to do.
1. Pen Holder
I’m soliciting the help of a friend more talented with a sewing machine than I am to make a pen holder out of elastic banding that will be good for any hard-backed Moleskine. We will see if it happens.
2. Clasp
This requires defacing my cover a little bit. I’m not sure I want to go there yet. Instead of the elastic band that goes from top to bottom around the Moleskine the elastic band will clasp on to a button sewn into the cover and will go around the side.