Log and Jotter notebooks are some of the most useful pocket notebooks on the market.
Designed and made here in the US, these notebooks include some small details that other companies leave out. Page numbers, a mix of page layouts, rulers, and thin grid lines help provide a well organized and handy tool. They are also lightweight and sturdy which helps them hold up to hiking, camping, back-pocket carry.
I have been a long-time fan of Field Notes notebooks, but the amazing covers on these notebooks caught my eye and I am sure glad I decided to signup for the monthly subscription.
Wes and Zac, brothers, create these notebooks from their basements and use a local print shop to manufacture them. I got the opportunity to catch up with Zac to ask him a few questions about his notebooks:
1. How did you guys get started making these size notebooks?
Wes and I have always wanted to start a business together. Wes was always throwing out crazy ideas that he had come up with, we just couldn’t find anything that we really loved or that both of us felt passionate about. After years of him throwing out ideas it seemed like we were on the cusp of actually doing something, so I bought both of us a couple notepads to carry around to keep track of all the ideas. We kicked around tons of stuff and started filling up the notebooks with lots of equally great and terrible ideas.
One day we were going through ideas in our notebooks and we noticed that we were filling them with not only ideas, but little parts of our everyday life. It may have been a shopping list, a prayer, journal entry about our kids, a sketch of a plumbing diagram, notes and measurements for a woodworking project, and countless other little pieces of everyday life. At that point it hit us that these little notebooks are not only useful, but will be awesome for our kids and future grandkids to see exactly what we were doing on the daily. The concept was cool to us so we thought that creating a monthly subscription would encourage people to fill a notebook every month to tell their story! The idea of having a box full of cool notebooks that reflects your life and what you did is something that allows each of us to tell our own story in a super simple way, without putting a ton of pressure on ourselves to write in a journal. It is supposed to be random and liberating for our members, no pressure to fill it with a certain piece of content, just use the notebook and it will tell the story. We love the advantages technology brings, but there is something great about putting down your phone and just writing stuff down.
2. What was the first edition design?
The first official issue of L+J that we sent to our members was called “First Flight”, and it went out in July of 2017.
Picture provided by L&J.
2. What type of shop do you have to make everything?
We are in the process of finishing up our shop, but for now we work out of the basement of both of our homes. We believe in supporting local business, so we source our paper and any printing needs we have through a local small print shop. We even use a very small rural post office to send out our notebooks, it may slow down our shipping a little bit since they aren’t automated, but we believe it is important to support our community as much as possible.
3. Where do you get inspiration for each notebook and what has been your favorite design?
When we originally started L+J our inspiration was our own self-proclaimed, mini-revolt against technology! We had grown tired on relying on our phones for absolutely everything we were doing, so we wanted to take back some of our independence and freedom. It may sound naive and impractical to some, but that was the motivation that helped us launch Log+Jotter. When we started this thing, we weren’t really sure how well it would be accepted, but we’ve come to find that there are thousands of people out there that feel liberated by taking back a small piece of their life that they had lost to their cell phone. Today our inspiration comes from the stories, emails, and messages we get everyday from our members who carry and use their L+J daily. We love that our members are putting forward the effort to preserve a piece of their own lives for future generations to consume.
It is really hard to pick a favorite design since each one tells a different part of our story, but if I had to pick a few of my favorites it would be the National Parks issues we’ve released and the “Double Play” baseball themed notebook.
4. Have you done any collaborations with other brands?
We have collaborated with a lot of different companies for special projects and custom notebooks, but our favorite collaboration so far is probably when we created a custom notebook for the band Switchfoot. They wanted us to make a notebook to go with a tour package they were putting together.
5. What do we have to look forward to this year and get excited about?
We have some exciting plans for the upcoming year, but often a lot of what we do is a direct reflection of what our members are going through. Recently we’ve had to improvise on our releases because the content and designs we had planned didn’t seem to fit with the current landscape we are all experiencing. We want to make sure we are always sensitive to what our members are feeling since our goal is to encourage them to make and tell their story. However, we are only a few weeks away from opening up an online L+J store that we think many people will be excited about!
Thanks for making some awesome notebooks guys and look forward to the next edition.
You can sign up for 1-2 books a month at their site here: LogandJotter.com
