Field Notes Went From Side Project To Cult Notebook

Field Notes, the analog notebook company that began as designer Aaron Draplin's side project 20 years ago, has sold over 10 million notebooks and operates in 2,000 stores worldwide, co-founder Jim Coudal told Fast Company. The Chicago-based company, which Coudal says just completed its best year for sales and revenue with 2025 tracking to exceed those numbers, has grown from selling 13 notebooks on its launch day to producing quarterly edition runs of 30,000 to 60,000 packs. The brand's subscription model, launched in 2009 with 1,500-pack print runs, now encompasses 67 limited editions and provides both predictable cash flow and regular customer engagement opportunities for the company.

Ooh shiny.

[greytree]

So they are notebooks that do exactly what cheap notebooks do, but are much more expensive and very heavily hyped.

I guess they appeal to the Apple fanboy crowd.

Re:Ooh shiny.

[Potor]

Not shiny. Artisanal.

Re:Ooh shiny.

[quonset]

Not shiny. Artisanal.

I wonder if they'll collaborate with these folks [imgur.com]. It seems their product is made for them.

Re:

[newbie_fantod]

You need Moleskines for that - with acid-free archival paper so future generations can benefit from your insights

Subscription Model

[PseudoThink]

What are two words that will sour me on your product faster than an inkjet printer demanding one to buy more ink cartridges?

this is an ad

[karlandtanya]

This is an ad.

Re:this is an ad

[piojo]

It is an endless stream of words that actually says nothing about the product.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

And yet, you come away knowing what the product line is called so you can search for it, and what the values of the company are so that you can identify with them, and that you can find them both online and in some stores, where certain other fashion brand clothes are also sold, so that you can gauge if the crowd you maybe like to run with can still accept you if you buy it. And that you can pay via PayPal.

Re:

[znrt]

i searched for the product, as the first sentence of the abstract framed it as a notable and well known and successful gadget i had never heard of without the rest of the abstract providing any clue about it.

i arrived at the product's landing page, and glanced over entire sections of text an images that, again, provided no information whatsoever about it. it struck me as the worst promotional page of a product ever. i glanced over the word "subscription" and felt a tiny bit of intrigue, but slightly more cr

Re:

[piojo]

What? No, life is much too short to pay attention to marketing fluff when I'm not yet interested in the product. Do you pay deep attention to everything you read? You need a spam filter for the brain.

Re:

[sabbede]

Yes, an ad.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Ads which make claims about products can be argued about.

Re: this is an ad

[Tomahawk]

I flicked through it looking specifically for a link to their website 'cos I wanted to look at the book itself to see why it was so great.

I couldn't find a link...

I agree that is an ad, but it's an ad that doesn't seem to tell you where to buy the product.

Couldn't be bother searching so lost interest.

Less space than a phone, lame

[excelsior_gr]

I first thought this was going to be about a text editor, but nope, just a plain old paper notebook. With a subscription model?! Also, having 67 limited editions is not exactly keeping it limited. Even spread out over 20 years, that's more than 3 special editions per year. I write on paper, a lot, every day. I need about 3-4 DIN A4 notebooks per year. I could get a limited edition notebook every time I needed one, freaking guaranteed to make me feel special as a snowflake!

"Limited edition"

[ebcdic]

A term meaning nothing more than paying extra to show off.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Nothing is infinite except the shamelessness of marketers.

"regular customer engagement opportunities"

[zephvark]

So, you're telling me that this "analog notebook" requires a lot of tech support? Your marketing department certainly has a top-notch way of describing your customers as idiots or your products as wildly defective. ("Why not both?")

Leuchtturm & Muji have me covered.

[Qbertino]

For all my paper notebook needs I'm more than covered by Leuchtturm and Muji.
Leuchtturm for the german premium quality spin on the Moleskine-type of notebook. Notebooks don't get any better than Leuchtturm IMHO. Once you've gone from Moleskine to Leuchtturm you don't go back.

For more affordable options I use Muji as my go-to brand.

Best of all: Both brands are also prefectly city-snob/hippster compliant and go perfectly well with Freitag or Crumpler messenger bags, lumberjack shirts and the smug 'I don't giv

Re:

[AntronArgaiv]

(you forgot the mandatory waxed mustache for male hipsters)

I used National, then Moleskine for engineering notes, until I realised that pretty much all my data was online and all my emails were archived. I wasn't doing a lot of work using paper, so I stopped using notebooks. Still have almost all my old ones though, although I regret leaving my first ones at a previous employer.
 

Re:

[Luke has no name]

What makes those better than Moleskine, other than Moleskine being made in China?

I like Moleskine's paper and I like the cahier style without a binding. Lays flat easier. Not sure if Leuchtturm has that.

Re:

[inicom]

Good tips, I agree both are good and much much better for use with a fountain pen - Field Notes uses paper that is not fountain pen friendly.

Re:

[Alypius]

Leuchtturm and Midori are my go-to notebooks. Clairefontaine is good, but a little too smooth for me.

Bookbinding

[blippy3]

I bought a pack of 3 field notes, and I'm half way through my second book. They're pretty well designed and have an interesting aesthetic about them. Good for those who like the retro feel about them. Their choice of size is good, too. They are not cheap, mind, so I'm reluctant to buy any more. I bought a really cheap bookbinding kit off of ebay, so I can make my own little notebooks for nearly zero cost. They're not all that time-consuming to make, either. There's something satisfying about making your own stuff.

Re:

[CAIMLAS]

I've been doing the same for almost 20 years. The first one I made with light cardstock (leftover high grade 'artisinal' paper from wedding invitations that looked antique / unbleached), and I sewed up 3 mini-books with a sewing machine, which I then glued into a spine made out of cardboard from a cereal box. Then I made a 'cover' for it out of some scrap deerhide I'd bought from the 'junk' bin at Tandy leather for like $5 that sleeves over the cardboard.

Now, anytime I need a pocket notebook, I just make an

Are we doing sponsored content now?

[sabbede]

Because that's sure as hell what this looks like.

I think msmash is a very bad editor.

Missed the fad by about a decade or so

[muh_freeze_peach]

Hey editors at slashdot, the whole mumford and son - stomp, clap, hey - dress like it's prohibition era fad is dead. These field notes bros have moved on to Leica cameras.

Re: Missed the fad by about a decade or so

[Fortnite_Beast]

But this is a site for nerds. Nerds aren't famous for keeping up with fads. They're the prime market for something like this.

Re:

[muh_freeze_peach]

According to the overwhelming evidence supporting the opposite of you claim, popular media is full of super heroes, video games, sci-fi, and fantasy. The lifestyle of "Nerd" is itself a famous and upkept fad.

Rite-in-the-Rain

[evil_aaronm]

I don't need notebooks often, but I prefer Rite-in-the-Rain. Their paper is water-resistant, and the covers are plastic, so if you throw them in a backpack, they won't get chewed up with the keys and other stuff floating around.

"Analog" Notebook?

[ByTor-2112]

JFC.