I have a habit of collecting things- trinkets, colors, leaves, decor. I tend to think that’s why I’m addicted to Pinterest. So I sat here at my computer, contemplating this fact and thinking about putting up a blog post, and I decided the most meta way of dealing with my love of collecting is to create a collection of blog posts about collecting! And because these were on hand and I seem to acquire them at an alarming rate, today I’m going to share my notebook collection.

Now, here’s why I feel I need just so many notebooks (and will probably continue to collect them): I use them for different things! And have received them as gifts over the years. So here they are, with their respective uses:

1. The Designer’s Notebook from the Design Lab at Chronicle Books. I seriously love this notebook for impressing clients. It has a dot-grid (my favorite for sketching and making tables!). It has different pages for projects, dates, and each new project has its own title page including area for description, parameters, inspiration, audience, etc. The nitty-gritty work gets done on paper elsewhere, but this is a great collector for work ideas. 
2. Sticky notes. In different sizes and colors. Sometimes I need to take a note with me. Sometimes I make my to-do list into several individual notes stuck to my monitor and crumple them up as I get each task done. My rule of thumb when it comes to an office: you cannot have enough sticky notes.
3. The Idea Log. This brightly-colored notebook is a bit of a novelty; it encourages you to list, one by one and alphabetically, ideas you have, their inspiration, date, application and when to execute. I’ve probably had this for 5 years and barely made a dent in it, but flipping through the pages and finding ideas such as my “Paint-By-Numbers Vision Glasses” makes me laugh.
4. Drawing sketch pad. Sometimes you just need paper with a bit more tooth to it for sketching out a logo, perfecting a glyph or just distracting yourself with a quick doodle. Spiral-bound is a must, as it has to be able to lay flat.
5. All-In-One. This notebook works overtime for an office nerd such as me. Its canvas cover is bright and graphic, it houses a pocket for loose items, a spiral notebook filler with excellent but thin drafting paper, and a set of colored pencils for drawing, color-coding or just looking über-cool at the coffee shop. Most notes made in this are torn out immediately so as not to ruin this vision of my cool self with sub-standard content.
6. The collage/idea book. This little notebook is the perfect size for making two-page spreads of pretty much anything artsy or journal-y. I tend to collage, draw, make word associations, paste quotes or just keep inspiring items in these pages to flip through later when I have a less-than-inspired moment.
7. Moleskines. To be honest, this is just a couple of the several Moleskins I probably have right now. I tend to keep to the smaller sized ones, because I’ve found they make excellent pocket notebooks. I typically jot down to-do lists, notes from meetings, addresses or names into this type of notebook.
8. Big Bad Graph Paper Book. This notebook is just impressive in terms of its heft. It’s probably 2-3″ deep of just really light graph paper, my chosen type of paper for layout and design doodling. I like having a grid on what I’m drawing so I know where dimensions might be, but then rarely do I find myself following these lines.
9. The artsy hand-made paper and bound by Guatemalan women book. This beauty is actually new to me, from my brother and his fiancée over the holidays. It’s bound between two hand-woven covers, with hand-pressed paper complete with rough edges inside. This is a special book, and I’ve got to admit I’ve been a little intimidated in putting pencil to paper because of how cool it is. I do have a secret project in mind for it, and may just share that another day!
10. The Regular Joe. Finally, here is the regular, lined legal pad, half-sized of course! This is my blotting page. It’s where I write down the stray hex code, or do some quick addition because I never fully mastered doing it in my head. It’s just nice to have on hand to take notes during a phone call or to hand off a password for a website.
11. Cozy Slippies. This last one isn’t really a notebook, but they’re in the picture and part of my working uniform. Hello, slippers!

There you have it! Do you find yourself overrun with notebooks too? Do they have different uses, or do you alternate between them for everything depending on your mood? Is this making me seem like a hoarder? Only time or a TLC special will tell!