I Received These Field Notes Sketch Pads Years Ago & I Finally Found a Use For Them

A couple of years ago, I had a Field Notes subscription, where for a full year, they sent me a limited edition release of notebooks which usually came with a few collectible extras. I’m a fan of printing techniques and stationery, so Field Notes gave me plenty to geek out over for the 12 months of this subscription. If there was a drawback, it’s that you get what they send you, so if you don’t get a format you like (I prefer dot grid paper) or you get a product you never foresaw yourself using, you’re stuck with it anyway. There’s also the issue of what to do with all these notebooks. Thankfully, my daily pocket logging has made use of this issue.

Here are the different limited editions I received in my year subscription:

Great Lakes - Released for the summer of 2022, the Great Lakes edition was a five-pack of notebooks with a cobalt blue cover and a map of the Great Lakes, which each book highlighted one of those five lakes. The inside pages featured a graph with a fold-out spread with a map of one of the lakes, featuring the cities, landmarks, depths, etc. There are also a few paragraphs about each lake’s history, aquatic life, and more. The set came with a total of seven notebooks with grid paper.

The set also came with a sixth notebook representing all of the lakes and a set of postcards of photos taken along the Great Lakes. Below is a video about those postcards.

Hatch - Released for the autumn of 2022, Hatch is based on the old Hatch Show Print printing press that’s been around since 1879. They’re known for a letterpress style of posters which have been used for everything from the Grand Ole Opry in the 1960s to today’s Pride festivals. The set came with two three-packs with lined paper and some posters of the prints the covers were cut from.

Kraft Plus - Released for the winter of 2022, this pack came in four colors based on the tones of the French Paper Co. wrapping paper the original Kraft notebooks came in. The colors were applied by mixing the ink with the paper as opposed to applying it to the paper after the fact. These notebooks weathered beautifully, as the notebook I used strictly in my pocket shown below illustrates.

The set came with four 2-packs in amber, moss, aqua, and a berry red color, the latter of which was only available in the subscription. The notebooks came with dot grid paper (my favorite) with tear-away perforations.

Streetscapes - Released in the spring of 2023, this was the set of sketchbooks that triggered this whole post. The covers are based on the old architecture of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Miami, and each cover is meant to be colored in if you so choose. The set came with two 2-packs.

I didn’t know what to do with these sketchbooks initially. With the notebooks, I can adapt them to whatever I want to use them for. The same could be said of the sketchbooks, but frankly, I looked at them for their initial intention, which is to sketch. It wasn’t until recently that I thought of another use for these things.

Every month, I’m given information on which products will be displayed on pallets. This info not only covers information for changes at the beginning of the month, but during the month as well. My boss (who worked in my exact position before) likes taking care of these spaces himself, so he just takes over the space. However, one of the challenges I was given from my store director was to take over my business more. So, the very least I can do is to keep track of what’s going on in this space myself.

I’m someone who learns by doing something over being told something. This is how I finally started using the sketchbooks to track the changes going on with my pallet spaces. I brought a pack of the notebooks with me one day, bought myself a metal ruler, and started drawing out what goes in these spaces, wring out the information for each spot and any changes that occur during the month. By doing this myself instead of having the information handed to me, I’m remembering what goes in these places because of the cognitive effect of writing things down.

This is much the same effect of how I database all my sales plans, even though I have a resource to look these things up on. If I jot it down, I’ll remember it. This is the big lesson I’ve learned lately: I have to write things out, or in some cases, draw them out. I need something manual to remember things.

The other things that I’ve realized is that many of the tools for this have been right in front of me all along. Many of those tools are as simple as a notebook and a pen. They don’t have to be expensive, but I do enjoy good quality with these things I use every day. But, they just have to be available. It’s for this reason that I always have a notebook in my pocket when I’m out and about, why I keep my sketchbooks at my desk, and why I always have a pen ready.

If there’s one drawback to the Field Notes subscription, it’s that you may not always receive something instantly useful to you. I’m a much bigger fan of dot grid paper than I am lined or grid paper. I enjoy the flexibility of dot grid so much more. But, I’m sure I’ll use the non-dot grid books anyway. That said, I’d be more than happy to have another subscription for Field Notes because of how much thought goes into each edition and the quality of the product I receive. Then there’s the surprise of every edition as nobody knows ahead of time what they’re getting.

But, definitely learn to use what you have already. The best solutions could turn out to be the simplest ones, tools that allow us to more at a slower, more human speed.