For the last few months and after many years of repeated requests from our community, we have been working on a brand new addition to the Mark+Fold range: the Mark+Fold Travel Journal.
Why keep a travel journal?
Many of our customers have told us about the sense of ‘calm in the chaos’ that stationery can bring, the act of writing things down to ‘fix them’ and calm the busy-ness in your own head. And we all know that travel can be stressful, especially travel days themselves. So the act of writing lists, and planning things out (“What time do we need to check in? How long is the train to the airport?” and so on), can help us feel calmer so that we can focus on getting excited about the adventure that lies ahead.
Planning is an important part of travel for a lot of people. Booking something in advance, scrolling through the photos in anticipation, packing your bags. So of course, writing a few lists — restaurants you want to try, the best swimming spots, the name of the village your dad said you should check out — are a really fun part of this.
Collecting - we often talk about notebooks being ‘empty vessels waiting to be filled’ and a travel journal is the ultimate version of this in a way — it represents all of the experiences, adventures and memories you are going to collect along the way. So this sense of collecting little things (whether physical or in your mind, in your notes and sketches) is a very special aspect of travel journaling too.
Recording - travel is a time to open your eyes and really take everything in, to pack your days full of new experiences and flavours. So the main purpose of travel journaling is to record what you’ve seen and done (and by far the biggest section of ours is dedicated to this). The tiny details you remember on the day itself, while memories are fresh, which would simply get lost in memory once you return home and pick up life where you left off. The sketches of a particular branch, the description of a meandering walk, all that has to be placed safely in your journal so you retain all the special details.
Our design process: Developing the Mark+Fold Travel Journal
1. We looked back through our personal archives of travel journals, from Helen’s trip to Nepal with her dad in 2000 to Amy’s expedition to the Amazon in 2022, and many less far-flung holidays in the years since.
2. We took inspiration from the conceptual travel journal we developed for Takeo Paper in 2019, including a series of pockets to hold mementos and keepsakes.
3. We did a survey of other travel journals on the market to see what worked well (and what didn’t). We were surprised to find that there were not very many dedicated travel journals on the market, alongside a number of notebooks simply labelled ’travel journal.’ So we were keen to see how we could push the idea a bit further.
4. As always, we had conversations with our customers. We hosted a survey and spoke to customers about how they use theirs, as well as interviewing travel journalists about the kinds of travel journals they have kept on their prolific travels.
The big questions we asked
1. How do we get the balance right between useful structure and a design that’s universal and flexible enough to work for a variety of different people on different journeys?
As with any item of stationery, there can be no one single format that will be just right for everyone. And the more detail or specific content we include, the more subjective it becomes. This is always a challenge with any product we create, and we always err on the side of keeping things simple. But a travel journal poses a new problem — having seen many examples on the market which were essentially just notebooks with the word ‘travel’ on the cover, we wanted ours to do a little bit more. We wanted to engender that feeling of ‘ooh! I can’t wait to fill in that page!’
> We decided to include a few more ‘pointers’ than we normally would, with the inclusion of a ‘Packing List’ and ‘Itinerary’ simply because these felt right to us and like something we would enjoy using ourselves, and we got some great feedback about these from our customer-testers. However when we included lists at the back of the Mark+Fold Travel Journal, we decided to leave these open to your own interpretation rather than label them ‘places to visit’ or ‘wines to try’ (both great suggestions from our testers, but so subjective that we felt any title here would be too prescriptive and limiting, so the lines are an invitation to ask yourself what you would like this page to be for).
2. What's the best format?
Another question that comes up with every new item we create and again, no one size fits all here. Some of the people we spoke to wanted a ‘per-trip’ travel journal, with the opportunity to colour-code or label different trips; others wanted a beefy book with a hardback cover and plenty of pages to travel round the world on a longer voyage of discovery. The possibilities are as endless as travel itself!
> Since this was our first foray into offering a Travel Journal, we decided to keep things simple and light for our first batch. As always, we are very open to feedback about our products, but this is specially true with a first-time batch, so please do give it a go and drop us a line to tell us what you think.
3. Pockets or no pockets?
The travel journal that really inspired Amy back in 2002, had a variety of little pockets inside for mementos. This magical idea has stayed with her all these years, it was developed further in out conceptual travel journal for Takeo Paper in 2019, and seemed like a no-brainder for inclusion in the Mark+Fold Travel Journal. However, when we tested a prototype, not everyone wanted the pockets and some said they simply would not use them. And as we looked back through our travel journal archive, we had to admit that these pockets did not always get used, and when they had been filled it was with paraphernalia of times gone by — from the days of physical paper plane tickets, flyers from boat trips, miniature polaroid photos — in short, things that simply do not always exist these days in a world of digital boarding passes and online bookings. Meanwhile, we spoke to our bookbinding team and since the pocket would have to be stuck into the books one-by-one, by hand, after the books were sewn, this was going to be an expensive and time-consuming addition.
And yet… there remained something magical in the concept of the pockets that made us decide to keep them, at least as an option. Even when they remained empty, they represented a really inspiring idea — just as we often talk about a notebook being an empty vessel waiting to be filled, and blank pages pregnant with potential just waiting for you to make your marks upon them; these pockets were sitting there awaiting to be filled.
Their presence is an invitation to ask yourself ‘what will I collect on my travels? What discoveries am I going to make along the way, which I will want to hold into and take home with me, either just as memories or perhaps as physical mementos?’ That idea just felt too powerful to let go. So we decided to take on the task of adding pockets by hand, and offering this as an option when you order.
Elements of the Mark+Fold Travel Journal, inspired by what customers told us
1. Pockets
This was one of the first things we knew our Mark+Fold Travel Journal had to have, as an option. What could be better than the tantalising prospect of filling tiny little see-through envelopes of different shapes and sizes with mementos collected on our travels?
We know how much you all love our Brass Page Markers (still one of our best sellers, so simply and yet so brilliant!). So we have taken the same glassine envelopes we use for these, as well as our Paperclips, and added in some novelty shapes and sizes to inspire you to find interesting things to put inside them. This has even inspired us to create a whole new product for the Mark+Fold guest products range, which is simply an assortment of glassine envelopes, which you can use in any number of ways (including creating your own travel journal ‘hack’ if you like!)
2. Writing space
This was another no-brainer for the travel journal, since everyone we spoke to said they would like space to write — be that to make plans, jot down times and phone numbers, or to write long poetic passages about your days. We opted for dot grid pages because we find this a good cross-over between those who prefer lines and those who prefer plain pages — if you’re new to dots, do let us know what you think once you’ve given this layout a go!
3. Drawing / painting space
We were delighted and a little surprised by the number of people who specifically asked if we could include some blank pages for sketches. As designers ourselves, we often do watercolours or pastel drawings on holiday so we were pleased to hear this is such a widespread holiday activity for so many. Thankfully our beautiful heavyweight 120gsm paper works well with a variety of art materials (including gouache which some of our customers use on our papers, though we can’t officially recommend that as the paper does warp a little!).
4. Lists
From places you’d like to visit, to restaurant recommendations and the local vocabulary, it’s safe to say you’ll be jotting a few things down both pre- and during your trip. We have included a number of lined pages at the back with no specific heading, so that you can decide how you'd like to use these.
5. Itinerary
This is another personal touch inspired by Amy’s own travel journals. As a self-confessed control freak who likes to meticulously plan all the details, she has always taken great pleasure in writing out a neat list of flight numbers and check-in times, to install a sense of calm on travel day and make sure everything runs smoothly.
6. Holiday colours
A holiday would not be complete without some fresh new colours in your luggage, so we wanted to offer a crisp summery colour alongside classic navy (they work nicely as a pair too if you have multiple trips planned or simply cannot decide!)
Shop the Mark+Fold Travel Journal
The journal comes in a choice of Pistachio or Ocean Blue, with gold foil details.
£32 without pockets / £38 with pockets
Details:
- 48 pages 120gsm super smooth, fountain pen friendly paper, made sustainably in Sweden
- 350gsm cover, made in Cumbria, with gold foil details
- printed in London, singer-sewn in Suffolk in matching thread
- page layouts include:
- title page with a box to write the title of your trip or travel destination
- itinerary for you to complete with your key dates and times for travel days
- packing list with satisfying tick boxes, over two columns so you an categorise your packing or create a new list for your return journey
- a mixture of dot grid and plain pages, for notes, sketches and sticking things in
- lined pages at the back for your own lists (eg. for restaurant recommendations, places to visit or important names and numbers).
- (optional) glassine paper pockets, placed throughout the book, in a variety of sizes, for mementos
