The Mario Blog

06.27.2008—11pm    Post #249
My Moleskine: good for sketching that first idea or for explaining Amy Winehouse

Hold on to your sketch pad, it is a guarantee that your idea will get a chance to be executed.

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It does not have to be a sketch pad that is perfectly bound and easy to carry. It can be a cocktail napkin, the back of a boarding pass, or even that blank page in the Lufthansa Business Class menu, the one that separates “meals” from “vinotek”.
All you need is a blank canvas, a marker, and off you go. I don’t know about you but I don’t go anywhere without my Moleskine (). My friends often ask me while my Moleskine seems attached to me except when I am running (I have not been able to devise a way to carry it while holding on to my iPhone).
I tell them that I believe in serendipity. Ideas usually don’t carry watches, agenda books or recognize Do Not Disturb signs. They are intrusive and love the element of surprise.
So be prepared.
Sketching allows you to capture the essence of a visual thought, but also become historical reminders of what you were thinking at a certain point. I found myself doing a crude drawing of troubled and talented singer Amy Winehouse the other day. A client editor confessed that he had no idea who Amy was (no wonder sometimes newspapers fail to reach segments of the audience!), so I figured if I did a quick drawing of la Amy, he would immediately recognize her, which he did.

Sketching also allows one to get a sense of dimension and proportion, and often an idea is abandoned after one completes the sketch.

Which makes me ponder how many great ideas were probably abandoned on page 44 of a Moleskine in the hands of such legendary users of the little books as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.

For the most, the sketch serves as the springboard into what may be and, often, into what will be.

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A Moleskine lasts me for about three months. By now, I have more than 200 of them, properly dated. They are memory boosters.
Recently, I ran into someone who asked: “Remember when you worked on The Forum, in Fargo, North Dakota?”
How can I ever forget that winter!
But , just in case I did, my Moleskine captures the first sketches of The Forum’s remake, which then jump out of the page becoming as vivid as the day I did them.

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OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Visit http://www.moleskinerie.com/2008/06/inspiration-fed.html and see samples of the First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit.

HEADLINES WE LIKE:
On Page One of London’s The Independent, June 26:
What’s in Obama’s iPod?
Yes, it is placed right there on the edge of page one, and one is ready to “click” and move on to that page 3 where the article appears, a summary of the original Rolling Stone piece that details the presidential candidate’s favorites. Yes, according to Rolling Stone Obama “is a Stevie Wonder geek.” Other artists he carries in his iPod: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jay Z, Earth, Wind and Fire, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Sheryl Crow.

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AND THE CREDIT GOES: Yes, that colorful strip that you see across our homepage to promote TheMarioBlog represents the combined efforts of talented Christian Fortanet and Dan Rubin; TheMarioBlog logo created by Rodrigo Fino.

WE SEND YOU:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/from-miles-davis-to-jayz-the-artfully-selected-secrets-of-baracks-ipod-854311.html
http://www.rollingstone.com

WHERE IS MARIO: Still in Goteborg, Sweden, and had a delicious dinner hosted by Tomas Landberg, brother of my good friend Stefan. On the menu: vegetarian lasagna with squash and zucchini in tomato sauce with mango curry; beef entrecote with Cajun spices; honey glazed pork, Swedish meatballs in spicy tomato sauce with dry grounded habanero peppers, rice and potatoes. Now preparing soon for a few days off in the Canary Islands. However, I plan to squeeze TheMarioBlog between running and playing beach bum for a few days. And, yes, my Moleskine comes with me, as essential as the sunglasses and the Dark Tanning lotion #15.

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