Notebook World

Corporate Gifts

Corporate gifts with a longer shelf-life

An Added Value

The selection process of a year-round business gift can be arduous. It needs to be appropriate, unique, unpretentious and under no circumstances should the item disappear in a dark drawer. The assortment of most corporate gift catalogs face their boundaries very quickly and a notebook offers much more. With high quality material components, a Brandbook notebook is not only a premium gift for customers, business partners and employees, but it also offers many opportunities to express your brand and advertising … and, your recipient will have a constant, practical companion throughout the work day.

This exclusive collection with red velvet and silver edging was produced for "COSMOPOLITAN" magazine.

Noble, High Quality Notebooks: A Subscription Premium For Your Product

Newspapers and magazines offering radios, blenders or alleged luxury watches as subscription premiums not only are entirely unoriginal, they even seem to contradict the brand image. Or what was the connection between a picnic basket and an economy paper again? A notebook not only is closer to writing and the product paper, it can also match the brand in colour and conception - like the sophisticated editions we produced for several well-known publishing houses.

Experiencing Your Brand

A brand logo is the perfect way to enhance a notebook. Not only does your customer receive a useful gift, but he/she also identifies with the brand experience.

Advertising Components

Out of sight, out of mind. The impression we receive from advertisement vanishes as rapidly as a campaigns fizzle out. An element with greater retention is a notebook and when you apply your advertising's key visual on the cover, your campaign messages are granted a longer life. Roadshows, event promotions, exhibition fairs, direct mail packages and POS/POVs (point of sales, point of purchase) provide great distribution opportunities and you can rest assured that your recognition factors last more than just your advertising's air time.

Notebook Subscriptions: Customer Retention with Style

Imagine regularly receiving a fine new notebook from a business associate, when your old one is full. Sounds great, doesn't it? It sounds even better for your business associate, who is assured of not being forgotten due to the regular reminders.

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Subtle Advertising

Notebook Interiors

Who knows what surprises a notebook may contain? Advertising pages, sketches and texts integrated into the book are all the rave right now. Most finishing techniques presented in the Finishing section can be applied to inner pages as well - as a great way to highlight details in photos by varnishing, for example.

Flip through this gorgeous notebook for Audi.

Flip through notebook

ELLE Inspires with an Opulent Photo Gallery

Unfortunately, we can't spare any more samples of this much sought-after notebook we have produced for ELLE magazine. Masterly photos on every eighth page tempted the reader to flip through the book again and again.

Idea Pool: Notebooks as Advertising

Which book fits which industry for which occasion? The PDF contains the results of our brainstorming session on advertising. If you cannot find the right one for you, don't worry. We're happy to dive into the think tank again for a few strokes.

Download (.pdf)

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Company Notebooks

Company Notebooks -
A tool for your brand communication

Company Information: Vision & Mission

Who we are, our company guidelines and what sets us apart from competitors are messages which require constant awareness, updates and reminders. A company notebook provides a great platform to communicate to customers, business partners, press, salesforce and employees. As a supplement to a company brochure, one can consolidate company information, history, mission, vision, commitment and product information in combination with photo spreads, calendar inserts, note taking pages and much more.

Welcome Package: A Warm Welcome On Your First Day

New employees face a flood of new information on their first day. A notebook is a wonderful companion where a company's processes, codes of conduct and guidelines can be communicated as well a great safe-keep for referential notes such as shortcut commands through a new phone system.

Recruitment Tool: Employer Branding With Career Opportunities

Top talent and professionals are highly coveted by recruiters. But how do we present career opportunities in the best possible way? We recommend a notebook with content presenting testimonials around the spirit of committment, innovation and more, as well as the benefits of educational programs and work-life balance... factors which deliver decision-making arguments why the brightest potentials should consider you the "employer of choice."

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Travel & Urban Trends

City Notebooks - Travelling Companions for Urban Hipsters

The City Notebook with the city's coat of arms colour-stamped nobly onto the cover - perfect for proud long-time residents and newcomers alike. And if you happen to leave you hood, just take a look at the included map to avoid getting lost in the urban jungle.

Naturally, we offer these books for both capital cities and other lovely spots as well. Just ask.

Passport Notebooks - Absurdistan Citizens

We came across the idea for this edition while examining the new, forgery-proof passports. So here is our edition of completely real fakes - passports for countries that have ceased to exist or that, sadly, never did. Just like regular passports, they're quite slim and they even have the advantage that you can write or stamp in them without risking international incidents.

Passed the toughest test of all: 2 months of daily duty on a launch boat in Hamburg.

Weatherproof "Hamburg" Notebook

A customer from Hamburg requested this weatherproof notebook. Not only does the cover withstand the most adverse weather conditions, but the writing paper itself resists some rain as well. Naturally, we offer weatherproof pens, too.

Books for the Masses: Paperback Notebooks

Our paperback notebooks are an inexpensive option for large editions, ideal for promotions, mass events or large exhibitions. Exclusive cover materials optional.

NYT Reporter's Notepad

A reporter without a notepad - that's like Tintin sans Snowy. That's why Brandbook produces sturdy, sewn reporter's notebooks for renowned daily papers. With a stamped logo on the cover, of course, and an expandable accordion pocket for important pieces of evidence.

Travel Journals

How about keeping a travel diary with drawings and notes of all the places you have been to? Our DIN A5 landscape scrapbooks age well and contain the finest Munken Pure Paper – a great surface which serves well for writing and drawing.

We have produced notebooks for one of the world's most renowned hotel chain - the legendary Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Notebooks vs. Stationary, or: What Hotel Guests Really Want?

Whether it's beauty sets or shoe polishing kits - many hotels provide amenities in order to make a stay as pleasant as possible. These amenities have a nice side effect: the hotel brand is displayed on the items and often taken home by guests. However, some branded products such as traditional letterhead are not necessarily contemporary and a notebook could serve as a more useful item. Best of all, a notebook equipped with helpful local information such as maps and train schedules. You can be certain that once a guest starts writing it, your hotel branded notebook will be a long-term travel companion.

A Robust Travel Companion

A perfect companion for road warriors: this notebook not only looks like a hardshell suitcase, but it can take a beating as well. The strong aluminum cover can withstand the toughest journeys and weather conditions – a type of treasure chest for travel notes and memoirs.

Passenger's Log

A personal log for documenting an entire voyage. Including photos and maps of the itinerary and a fact sheet of the ship. Our suggestion as a finishing touch: The ship's silhouette and her name embossed subtly on the navy blue cover. A log that is guaranteed to get a premium spot on the bookshelf of every passenger.

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Color and Materials

Real 'Must Haves': Genuine Leather and Other Fine Materials

Finding gifts for customers can be quite tricky. Quite often, they are people who have everything they need and don't need anything they don't have. A notebook, however, always is good choice - if it meets the requirements in terms of material and processing. Like our First Class notebooks: covered in Italian leather and bearing an individually engraved clip.

Naturally, we offer matching gift boxes as well.

Pure Gold

Many award-winning design and advertising agencies are customers of Brandbook. As avid fans of their style, we are proud to supply Mutabor. It's not surprising to find that the Mutabor notebook edition has become a stylistic icon - a golden cover and countless samples inside.

Gold cover materials can be found in the

Book Configurator

New "feel"" for Adidas

Very smart: an unusual surface with velvet haptic and a screen-printed logo. Looks both attractive and athletic - the David Beckham of notebooks, so to speak.

High-tech Look for Sennheiser

The cool look of the edition for Sennheiser matches the products of the leading manufacturer of microphones and headphones. In accordance with their futuristic product portfolio, Sennheiser chose a "metallic" surface material in combination withwith blind embossing.

Soft leather fiber lends itself particularly well to impressions through embossing techniques as well as laser engraving.

Lefa Book: A Soft Leather Fiber Hardcover

Discretion with a "wow" effect: This notebook made of black leather fiber may at first glance appear inconspicuous, but once you page through it, lovely details display a vibrant accent color. This accent color is applied throughout a selection of our fine accessory options: color edge gilding, endpapers, expandable interior pocket, book ribbon, dividers and elastic band revealing beautiful design and finishing details

Your textiles as cover materials

You faithful customers can recognise your distinctive trademark pattern from miles away? You new collection is guaranteed to be this year's main attraction? So why not present you new creations on a book cover for a change? Thanks to a new technique of book cover production, we can now offer to use textiles as cover materials.

The accoutred books are ideal for your collection of accessories, as a distribution and marketing tool for fashion brands and as giveaways for textile stores.

Flex covers

Flex covers are - you'd never guess - covers made from flexible materials. This not only looks very relaxed, but also ensures maximum flexibility in terms of use: Flex covers fit into every pocket and under every pillow.

Perforated cover

These perforated notebook covers display a rythmic pattern comparable to the masking on high-tech speakers. The material is a metallic surface and allows a secondary material to become visible through the perforate holes. You can choose to combine two harmonizing colors or a screaming neon material both resulting in depth and playfulness with lights and shadows.

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Prototypes

Notebook with Chalkboard Paint

Chalkboard paint applied through screen-printing, creates a unique black matte effect. Of course you can write on the cover with chalk. Be careful however, your clothes may want suggest otherwise.

Prototypes

As a rule print producers are fond of exploring new print and finishing techniques in book production. We do too! And we enjoy "reinventing" books over and over again.

Eye-catching motion on the cover: Lenticular Effect

Images of jumping cartoon characters and bikini-clad beauties with disappearing tops - those were the lenticular images of the seventies. Today, you can use the technique for interesting typography or sophisticated graphics. The book cover is produced the regular way with a stamped recession for the lenticular image to fit in perfectly

3D relief Cover

If you prefer to get expressive with form and shape, our 3D relief covers offer an ideal book cover. We can create a mold for almost any object and shape a realistic replica of your item revealing delicate details. These creations are magnificently realistic and offer charming effects with light and shade.

Real Cow Hide

Real cow hide as cover material: Not exactly cheap, but neatly warm

Designer Book

The trademark of architect and designer Prof. Herbert Ohl - our good friend - is that fact that he draws in white on black paper. We accepted the challenge to create a black-paged book to be used with a white or silver pen. The perfect tool for designers and everyone promoting a black product.

Not much fun without a pen writing in white or silver. If you don't want to overwhelm the recipient, try combining white and black pages.

Total Fakes

A fancy MP3 player or a slim laptop PC will hardly get you any attention nowadays. A paper notebook camouflaged as an MP3 player, however, certainly will. Especially for product launches, our IT customers like to order these total fakes.

Or why not try the other way round - an MP3 player camouflaging as a paper notebook? The product can easily be hidden in the punched-out book block.

160 pages and a frog pocket instead of 40GB of RAM. Display and menu options are embossed.

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Accessories

Our Accessories Highlights

Our Notebook Configurator will help you customize your notebook edition, including book ribbon, headband, elastic band and a lot more. In the following, we would like to give you an overview of the most popular accessory designs. Please note that we are happy to accomodate special requests beyond our standard offerings.

To the Book Configurator

Books with banded wrappers

A wrapper is a wonderful enhancement when presenting and distributing your notebooks. Whether you chose a pattern, company logo, a recepient's name or any message, a band can be marvelous door opener for every book.

Bookmark

A simple bookmark can serve as an elegant display of your brand communication. Alternatively, you can chose from a wide range of patterns, calendars or to do-lists on a bookmark's front and back.

Embossed logo, book ribbon, rubber band, and headband

All in the same corporate design color. Frequently this can pose a challenge since producers of rubber bands use different textile colors than book ribbon manufacturers. But don't worry - we'll make sure that everything is coordinated perfectly.

Books with Secrets

For Sony, we produced books with a secret hideaway for USB sticks inside the book block. The first book with an integrated memory of 1GB - surely a world premier.

Interior pockets

An expandable interior pocket convenient for safekeeping receipts, tickets and other small valuables. Please ntoe that our interior pockets can be ordered to match any color including a seemless transition from your endpapers.

Where does the pen go?
We have 6 suggestions:

Until now, there were only three possibilities. First, you didn't have a pen to start out with, second, you would forget it somewhere, third, you would stow away your pen in one of your pockets, including the risk of staining shirts. Now, there are several appealing alternatives: an elastic strap, a clip, a pen holder on the book spine, an elastic band with integrated pen holder or a pen within the book block.

Deluxe magnetic bookmark with your motif

This magnetic bookmark literally grabs on to every page avoiding slips and misplacements. The motif is revealed when the notebook is opened and the metal background offers a surface suitable for logo or picture engraving as well as color screen printing.

Name tag cover

This element is helpful for identifying a book's owner. The rivet closure offers a sturdy anchor for the ribbon to wrap around and keep items from falling out.

Practical magnets

Our magnets are discreetly tucked inside the book cover and disguised behind the book cloth. One gentle click snaps the elegant notebook flap together and is firm enough to keep valuable loose leaf papers from falling out.

Wide, wider, widest – our extra wide elastic band

We offer extra-strength, extra-wide elastic bands packing your notebook tight and making a bold fashion statement. The elastic band is wide enough to offer logo embroidery a surface. Another feature inspired from the fashion world is our small label tucked into the cover's side. This also can also be embroidered upon request.

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Notebook Alternatives

Notebook Alternatives

Hand-sewn booklets with deluxe cover materials

Our booklets are a great alternative to regular sized notebooks. For on-the-go note-taking or small tasks and projects, these booklets are a light-weight, discreet companion. Our booklets come with exclusive book cover materials and contain exquisite design details such as elegant sewing and linen folds.

Singer Stitching

Brandbook's notepads are sewn along the spine with approximately 30 incisions. This method provides to be more durable than the toughest staples and is visually much more appealing. We have named this bookbinding process "singer stitching" in honour our singer sewing maching which we found in a Chelsea, NY fleamarket.

These Nuuna-Stitch notepads come with a softtouch cover and singer stitch are available here.

British Bookbinding

Its not really a "real" binding and we are clueless where the term originated from. One thing we know for sure, is that "british binding" is a stitching which works perfectly well for notebooks and can contain a volume of up to 80 pages. In combination with colored papers for cover and back and matching stitching – these notebooks not only have an elegant appearance, but are robust as well.

3 in 1

Good things come in threes!! Therefore we created a three in one booklet. For those who need to multitask three projects, or enjoy a handy calendar combined with information such as company guidelines, these threesome offer many possibilities to combine content/information and note taking.

Classical Book on the Outside, Spiral Binding on the Inside

If you like the advantages of spiral bindings but prefer the look of a classical notebook, why not choose the best of both worlds: Brandbooks can use a spiral binding completely invisible from the outside. The cover material can be selected in the Book Configurator.

Spiral-bound Books

Spiral-bound books don't have to look like exercise books. With beautiful cover materials, high-value printing products can be bound in Wire-O-Binding.

Conveniently stashed away in the back pocket of your jeans or your bag, these mini-sized spiral bounds and small notepads in pda formats (aka hipster pda) are little helpers for daily to-do lists or quick notes for spontaneous thoughts.

To the Book Configurator

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Book Packaging

Double the Value

If your edition is intended as a gift for a customer, we suggest presenting it in a gift box. Our cooperation partner has specialised on producing book packaging and slipcases. For the samples displayed below, we have punching dies ready, making them quite inexpensive. If you'd like a different packaging altogether, we're happy to develop an alternative.

If you prefer coloured papers to a classically printed packaging, we suggest using Fedrigoni boxes.

We have matching gift boxes and packaging formats.

Book Slipcase

Many precious books come with elegant slipcases and you can indulge your brandbook with this protective accessories as well. We offer a range from classic editions to ones with matching cover materials or multi-book slipcases such as in this example. Another inspiring possibility is a continuous landscape photograph across slipcase and book spines.

Our Service: Stocking, Finishing, Shipping

We know just how exhausting creative work can be. So if you have spent all your energy on designing your Brandbook, allow us to take care of the rest. We are not only experts in generating ideas but also in getting them off the ground.

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Seminars & Conferences

The ideal training partner:
Notebooks for Seminar and Conferences

You can find them in almost any meeting room and training facility: nondescript notepads inviting you to scribble mindless doodles. On the other hand, a tasteful and long-lasting notebook can be the ideal gift for participants – providing a valuable service throughout the event and beyond. In addition to space for note taking, you can provide content pages with speaker profiles or local information around the venue. Such a give-away is especially great if it is enhanced with a personalized engraving. By the way, there are interesting options to finance your production costs – for example, offering event partners and sponsors an area to advertise. Please do not hesitate to contact us for solutions.

Participants of the ADC Summit 2010 received this beautiful notebook edition - a crowd-pulling highlight at the event with onsight personal laser engraving.

One of our customers, a tutor conducting about 80 workshops a year with 20 to 30 participants each, is a stern believer in giving away Brandbooks. First of all, the beautiful book is a valuable gift for the participants.

Secondly, the book encourages diligently taking notes rather than drawing stick figures onto notepads. Thirdly, for only 3 EUR per book, each participant is guaranteed to take home a lasting memory.

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New Mindset

So Long, Calendar: Getting Rid of the Grid

In contrast to calendars, organizers and filofaxes, notebooks are structured by nothing else but the chronological order of its entries. Not only does this work incredibly well, it also helps you to resist the ever-present pressure to schedule life and efficiency: Each idea, every day and every thought gets just as much space as needed and your life is not categorised into different sections such as work, birthdays, personal, etc. Avid notebook aficionados have a collection of at least 20 notebooks, which they love for their unique structure, aligned with the course of life and the personal train of thought.

Collective Notebook: Innovation Management Up Close

Charles Clark's idea of a Collective Notebook is used as a tool for finding new ideas and solutions in many advertising agencies and other companies. Each participant gets a notebook to collect ideas for the problem outlined inside. The advantage of this written brainstorming is that the participants can make notes whenever they want and wherever they are, without having to meet in person.

For Mindjet, we have produced books with latently printed mind maps - an elegant way to boost creativity while reducing the fear of the blank page.

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Analogue+Digital

Finally - someone able to read your handwriting.
This is an innovative notebook edition we designed for Paperium™. The digital pen registers and saves your handwriting, processes the data and transfers this to a computer. How it works: A barely visible dot pattern, is printed onto the notebook pages. Using an infrared camera, the pen registers the pattern, determines the pen's exact position and starts digitizing handwritten text the moment you put pen to paper.

For more information please see: www.anoto.com

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The Black Art

Not to be confused with witchcraft, this historical term has been used throughout the middle ages, particularly in Germany ("Die schwarze Kunst") and refers to the craft of typesetting and print making. As manufacturers of notebooks we have a high appreciation for the artistry and craftsmanship of these professions and identify with these very closely. By the way, "black" refers to the black ink used in books and newspapers.

Lead type
in a typesetting studio