9/2007 UPDATE: Amazon has the New York City Notebook for $12.95!

Modo e Modo caused a bit of excitement last week when they announced their Moleskine City Notebook series: a Moleskine notebook with special features, meant to be a travel guide that you write yourself. As it happens, I’m going to New York at the end of the month, but that version won’t be available until next year. Well, I thought. Maybe I could modify a blank Moleskine and make something similar?

First thought, best thought
So I washed some cherries (stone fruit is back in season - take that, sadness!) and got to it. I based my work on Patrick Ng’s photos of a prototype, although I made changes - my trip is going to be relatively short, so I used a 72-page Volant notebook instead of a standard 200-pager, which meant: no cloth bookmarks, fewer tabbed sections (five instead of twelve) fewer removeable pages, fewer note pages, many fewer maps, and I had to make my own pocket since the Volant doesn’t have one. So my version is quite slimmed down.

The materials

• 1 Moleskine Volant
• 1 Scotch permanent glue stick - you could use an acid-free glue like Yes!, instead
• Thick clear tape - I used Scotch packaging tape
• Scrap cardboard
• A ruler
• Scissors
• An X-Acto knife, sharp

The maps
Since I’m going to New York, I was going to print out maps from NYC & Company, but as it turned out I had a nice small map in my files, which I was happy to paste into the front. I also added an MTA subway map. I’ve been to New York a bunch of times, so I felt comfortable that level of information - still, the 36 pages of zone and transmit maps the eventual NYC City Notebook will have strikes me as a definite advantage over my version. (I also forewent the tracing sheets due to lack of fine detail.)

The pocket
You can skip this step if you’re using a regular Moleskine, but I made a quickie pocket for the back of the notebook by gluing in a small envelope. Why reinvent the wheel? The accordion pockets are better, but I’m lazy.

The tabbed sections

1. This is the only tricky part, and it’s not that tricky. I wanted five tabbed sections, each with three pages, so I did the math…the way the Volants are set up allowed for nine blank pages in the front and a bunch of detachable pages in the back, which I left alone.
2. Then I divided the edge of the top page of my intended set of fifteen pages into five equal parts.



3. Here’s the part where you should take your time and be careful. I put a piece of scrap cardboard and cut all the paper under my intended tab away from the top three pages, with a ruler for guidance. Please cut away from yourself!



4. Repeat for the next four tabs.



5. Okay, looks good! From here, I wrote labels on the tabs and taped them up for a little added durability. I liked the categories the Moleskine people picked - dreams, particularly, is something I wouldn’t have thought of myself, but a great section to have.

Finally
For a touch of zazz, I added “NYC” stickers to the front - and I’m ready for my trip!

That’s it
If you have questions or can think of other useful modifications, please comment!