I learned from KOLO this new project since last year May's National Stationery Show, a portable travel notebook which combines photo storage and journaling functions using a flexible refill system. As you know, KOLO is almost entirely about photo archiving and presentation, they obviously did a great job to create clean and stylish product lines but most of these products are to be used *afterward*. You select photos, plan layouts, do scrapbooking stuffs, archiving and presenting the final outcome as a decor or sharing with friends and relatives after events. I was extremely excited to see how they would execute this travel notebook idea and come up with a final product, which you can carry with you during travel and making memories on the fly. I had a lot of expectations because bringing archival quality to a product you use everyday inevitably requires a whole new mindset. I mean KOLO can be perfect in their top notch material quality but an object you would use on daily basis subjects to a whole new set of hazardous situations especially when we are talking about travel. What a challenge.
I got this prototype Essex in small size (they have a medium sized one) a few weeks ago and tried to use it during my Frankfurt/Tokyo trip. Since I was going to taste what it's like to do photo journaling in real-time on this product, I carried it everyday along side with my Polaroid camera. I also used my
Pivi-300 portable printer to print photos from my digital IXUS. The best companion to Essex seems to be instant cameras and instant photography is obviously going to come back as we are probably going to have
new Polaroid films available in end 2009. Fujifilm is refining their
Instax mini line while there is a rumor that they are working with Lomo to have something soon to be released in April about 'instant', not to mention
Zink's collaboration with Polaroid (PoGo), Dell (Washabi) and Tomy (Xiao). IMHO, I think KOLO should gear Essex to work with instant photos coz you won't want to wait until you go back home to print photos and write something about your travel afterward.
Essex features the same wonderful cloth cover with a small window on the front. You can choose to have one of the following refills held by elastic band on the spine: monthly/weekly diary, ruled/blank notebooks, photo pocket notebook, etc. I think you can put 3 notebooks inside the cover but if are like me loving to capture everything from receipts, stamps, photos, restaurant name cards, boarding pass, tags to maps, the photo pocket pages will not be enough and it quickly blow Essex up into a thick wallet the elastic enclosure won't close. The tiny little back pocket on the back cover also seems to be useless in my case.
In fact, I should've chosen a medium sized Essex because the photo pocket notebook in small size Essex is for 3x5 photos so my Polaroids and even Instax mini photos don't fit well with it. Up to this point during my trial, I decided that I had probably mis-used Essex as a capturing tool for everything. "How to use Essex" becomes the next question in mind, and I'm sure this will happen to any user in the future. When you think about it, a clean and stylish product also demands certain usage restrictions, like in a beautiful KOLO album, you just don't put every photo in it.
Having said that, I still want to pursue my perfect photo journaling notebook with the following requirements:
- works well with Polaroids and Instax mini
- portable size but smaller than A5
- pockets to store receipts, tickets, etc
- paper good for roller ball, fountain pen and watercolor
- soft cover to handle bulging contents
- refill notebooks can be filed pleasantly to an album or archive system
- customizable to personal style
- enclosure not intruding front cover
- photo and writing on the same page possible
- clean cover design, tough to resist travel tortures
- archival quality
I'm sure these requirements are not that far fetch, but execution will eventually meet design and inevitably facing lots of scrutiny versus brand identity and personality. Product design and innovation, a fun game to watch as a by-stander but I never forget to appreciate the ingenious hard work behind.
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