Nomad Notebooks

by Stuart Lennon

Our newest supplier is Nomad Notebooks, a company we had been watching on social media, and one that a couple of customers had highlighted to us.

Their mixed page books are interesting, fun and superb quality.

I put Ben, co-founder, under the spotlight.

Why did you start designing notebooks? How did you get to where you are today?

LaMar and I work as graphic designers every day, and at the end of the day we always have different types of paper with logo sketches, page layout designs and sketches. We would use graph paper, sticky notes, plain sheets and we had this jumble of mixed up paper. We thought it would be helpful to have a notebook with mixed up paper inside. We couldn't find one anywhere so we decided to make it ourselves.

We started off selling our original Repurposed Nomad Notebooks and some other items we designed at some local craft shows. The notebooks were clearly the best seller, so we decided to refocus all our efforts in to them. We realized we needed some startup cash to produce them on the scale that we wanted and therefore we launched a Kickstarter project. We thought, if the idea is good, people will back our project and if it's a bad idea, we at least tried. Needless to say, the Kickstarter was successful and we launched our business out of that.

What’s behind your design?

With Sea Air Space, we pulled out all the stops and details. We live in an area called Hampton Roads in the state of Virginia here in the United States. Hampton Roads is next to the coast and is a melting pot thanks to the heavy military presence which brings families from all over the country to our cities. We have grown up around the ocean, military ships and jets, and there is a NASA location here as well, it was featured in the movie Hidden Figures. I say all of that to say, Sea Air Space is themed based on our surroundings. 

Sea, Air, Space

Inside of Sea is a sea depth chart of the Chesapeake Bay, which is here in our local area, and we mixed up the graph and color of paper inside to go along with that theme. We used a historic photograph of John F. Kennedy on his boat to tie in history because we love history.

With Air, we featured a historic image of the Tuskegee Airmen, a famous all African American group of pilots. Again inside of this notebook we show the air map that is part of Virginia and we mix up the colors to match air with a blue paper for the sky.

Lastly, with Space, we have a historic image of John Glenn exiting Friendship 7, designed at our local NASA location and a constellation map on the inside pages. The constellation map on the outside cover is printed in metallic silver. The graph paper is reminiscent of the cross pattern on photos taken in outer space.

As you can see from the detailed description we put a lot of thought into this pack of notebooks.

Graph Pack

For the Graph Pack we alternate six different types of graph paper.

 

The Planner Pack alternates between a calendar that has only labels on the day so the user can fill out the number day and also label the month. This allows someone to start at any time of the year with these planners. On the inside covers we have the entire year of dates from 2018-2022. 

Who are your notebooks for?

EVERYONE!!! We have found that Nomad Notebooks help to spark people's creativity. It gets them outside of the box when they are drawing, writing or sketching. Kids love them, artists love to sketch in them, we have a ton of hand letterers using them, UX and game designers dig the graph paper for their ideas and all the organized people in your life love the planners with the calendars and to-do lists.

How do you use notebooks?

Always writing down ideas for Nomad. I carry them with me most days and I constantly sketch and draw other logo concepts whenever I do freelance work.

What’s next for you?

We have so many ideas, but as the old saying goes, 'slow and steady wins the race.' We are being strategic about each move we make and with Kickstarter we had a lot to do with order fulfillment, setting up those processes and other parts of the business side of things. As we are moving past that phase of Nomad, we are anxious to hit the creative side of things again and are working on another heavily thought out idea for a mixed up pack of notebooks. 

Describe yourself in three objects

Notebook, camera, car.

Notebook, Notes App or both?

Notebook.

What’s in your pencil case right now?

Zebra pen, Nomad pencil, lead holder with lead, colored pencils.

Pencil, ballpoint, gel, or fountain pen?

Pencil.

Which three famous people, (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

Jesus, Frank Lloyd Wright and Steve Jobs.

What’s the best thing about the place you live?

It's a nice blend of urban landscape and the outdoors. There are a lot of places to go and things to do in this region.

What’s your most treasured possession?

We don't put a lot of weight in to possessions.

Where are some of your favourite Stationery spots on the Internet?

Neros Notes! Nomad