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Our friend Andrew Eberlin says his Monthly Jotter is "A concise mixture of creativity, design and culture that might spark an idea (or two)." We subscribe and his Monthly Jotter lands in our inbox ready for elevenses on the last Friday each month. We also love it because it often does change how we see things.
Well this Jotter is all about writing by hand and starts with a quote from Sylivia Plath which says
“… everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
So why are we sharing Andrew's Jotter? Well it's a few reasons really.
Since 2007, our independent publishing brand has created and curated beautiful books, journals and gifts designed to celebrate life's special moments, share meaningful stories and bring your favourite people closer. Many are about capturing stories and messages in handwriting. That seemed a good reason.
As well as this though, we like Andrew.
Andrew runs Brighter Side working with independent businesses, sole traders, artists, thinkers and doers to design websites which look good, communicate clearly and share great work. He has been a source of support and challenge to our business over the 20 years we have existed and he created our own first ever professional website and what a fun process that was, but enough reminiscing right now ... time to share the Jotter.
We hope you enjoy the read ... and use this link if you want to subscribe to read his Jotter every month.
Hello,
This month’s Jotter is all about writing by hand. Why? It’s just how things fell into place. As you’ll see below, Russell and Giles had a letter writing idea, Ritka gave me some postcards and I discovered some lovely new notebooks.
There’s also a dash of nostalgia. Earlier this month my brother, Lucy Brouwer and I toured some of the buildings in Nottingham that my Grandpa and Dad designed across the middle decades of the last century. We also dug out a pile of their drawings and admired the beautiful handwriting on large brown envelopes telling us which hand-drawn plans were within.
It made me wish that I could write with the same style, but with years of tapping away on a keyboard I had lost the skill to write neatly. With practice, it is now coming back. Given calligraphy shaped my dad’s (and Steve Jobs) work, I’m taking a course myself this autumn.
Onwards,
Andrew
01, Stay.
El Elevador sits alone on a volcanic cliff. I suppose you could call it self-catering holiday accommodation, but it’s a little more special, isolated and possibly life-changing than that. If you write them a handwritten letter they will secure you a reservation. And then you wait.
Summer holidays have clearly revived an interest in postcards. Giles started the Good Postcard Club long before the current craze, while Ritka gave me a box of them this month and shared articles about the lost art of sending them and the beauty of limited space.
03, Letters.
Giles has also written a letter about how to write a letter. He and his co-respondent, Russell, have some vague plans about where this might go.
Meanwhile (as previously seen in Jotter 57), Carlo Navato enacted some analogue resistance by posting 101 typewritten missives to LinkedIn. The algorithm hated them, which is why I like them. And because they are in a book, I can still read them (the website is no longer there so I assume the book has sold out).
04, Notebooks.
Shot notebooks by Coffeenotes are made from recycled coffee cups, fit in your pocket and are just the right size to dedicate each one to a different project. I filled my first three within a month. Fortunately, Jason gave me some Moleskine pocket notebooks to take up the slack.
05, Photography.
John Hinde was born in Somerset, went travelling with a circus before taking up photography. Butlins, Ireland and destinations further afield were all captured for postcards. He shot in colour, very rare for the time, because he liked it and it made his work stand out.
06, Travel.
James Max travelled luxuriously on the Orient Express and realised luxury “isn’t marble bathrooms or gold taps. Luxury is having nowhere urgent to be.” While Quentin Stafford-Fraser came up with a ‘calculation’ to demonstrate why driving slower is more relaxing. It’s an age thing.
07, Cooking.
With the Bradford on Avon Flower and Produce Show only two weeks away, this is a timely find. When looking for a recipe online you’ll no longer need to read the cook’s life story and other algorithm seduction techniques. Instead, paste the url into RecipeTables and it will convert the recipe into a clear list of ingredients and instructions. Genius.
Here’s the recipe for our morning granola by Felicity Cloake. Delicious and full of good things which will get you through to lunch without the need for a naughty biscuit.
08, Calligraphy.
Steve Jobs epiphany: “Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed... I decided to take a calligraphy class... I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.” So changing the course of computer history.
09, Work.
Joe Boissevain’s great-grandfather designed a collection of very stylish mid-century lamps (which appeared in the 1951 Festival of Britain) and is relaunching them to a grateful world. This website announces the founders edition lamp, Ottilie. More mid-century classics will be coming soon.
Source Retail Displays provide retail displays tailored to a brand, for retailers who may not have the space or budget to bulk buy large quantities. To simplify the process, save time and increase sales, they wanted an e-commerce store which is where I came in. Built on Shopify, the platform gives the ultimate flexibility to suit more complex product ranges such as this.
Thank you for reading the August Jotter. The next issue will glide into your inbox on Friday 25th September at 11am.
In the meantime, if you send me your address, I’ll send you a postcard.
Onwards,
Andrew
PS Here she is. Since you last saw her, Gretl’s been spayed and has fully recovered, back swimming, chasing balls and generally being happy.
