Ed Note: Boingboing’s current guest blogger Gareth Branwyn writes on technology, pop and fringe culture. He is currently a Contributing Editor at Maker Media. Recent projects have included co-creating The Maker’s Notebook and editing The Best of MAKE and The Best of Instructables collections.
I think I have one of the coolest jobs in the world. I get to work for Maker Media, helping to create magazines, books, web media, and events that I truly care about, that excite and inspire me. I just got back from the MAKE offices in Sebastopol, CA, where I was helping to put Volume 17 to bed. It’s the “Lost Knowledge” issue, pressurized with plenty of steampunky goodness. It’ll hit newsstands on March 10th. Last year, I got to lead the team that created The Maker’s Notebook. Every engineer, artist, designer, crafter, or other creative type I know has ideas on what would make the ideal blank notebook. We took a lot of this input and tried to incorporate it into our design.
One of the things we wanted to do with The Maker’s Notebook was design in hackability. We wanted the book to beg to be customized, extended, repurposed. The cover was designed to look like a cross between a blueprint and an empty storyboard. We created special stickers with which to customize it. We’re thrilled by all of the useful, creative, and crazy things users have done with their books. We gave some notebooks to teacher Steve Davee’s 4th grade math class to see what they’d do with them. Above is student Aiden’s LED cover mod video. Steve has done some crazy-cool hacks of his own, including a binary indexing system, which you can see here. Below are a few other mod projects. More can be found on the Maker’s Notebook webpage.
This is an impostor! Kent Barnes Maker-ized his pocket Moleskine by covering it with a paper bookcover he made of the Maker’s Notebook. I did one of those jowly cartoon triple-takes when I saw this image on Flickr.
Matt Mechtley’s, of Flashbang Studios, notebook, modded at the workshop at last year’s Maker Faire Bay Area.
Val Hutchins made a cloth tool caddy that attaches to the cover of her notebook.
MAKE Online Editor Marc de Vinck made a snap enclosure for his book.