Who now could do without tablets, PCs, mobile phones? No one, in an increasingly populated by digital natives world. Yet type no longer enough. It returns the taste of writing, but not on the usual calendars or on notebooks series present in stationery. You want to write on a custom paper, notepads, calepini, albums and notebooks made by hand, perhaps in a limited edition and according to an ancient printing process, the movable type.
Davide, Silvia and the our project Quaderni di carattere in Saronno
But where to find them? Davide and Silvia, both graphic designers sell them online after they are assembled one by one for their project that they affectionately called Quaderni di carattere and make them sought after items cool that over time become cult.
Their shop-laboratory in Saronno in that same basement where it all began after they found drawers full of typefaces and typography handpress founded by David’s great-grandfather.
Always graphics and typography lovers, Davide and Silvia had until then rebased on the world of design relying almost exclusively on digital media.
The turning point, in addition to the recovery of proof puller, movable type, inks, rollers and clichés, was participating in an event that saw them protagonists.
So it’s definitely taken the spark that gave life to their personal brand: Quaderni di carattere, a micro-business that deals with printing press in order to keep alive and spread the typography of the past.
The use of computers is not completely excluded, because they very often elaborate designs digitally, which are then converted into cliché in analogical way. And in this a little ‘I see myself: I use the computer for e-mail and social, but when I have to make the most of my emotions to describe a trip, recommend a route, write a story of a person but also a object or a place, there is nothing better than a sheet of paper.
A notebook that you remember those of the past, including imperfections, the printing technique used by Davide and Silvia behaves as in letterpress printing paper is not just printed, but impressed.
All their books are limited editions, in order to offer unique artisan products and high quality, attention to detail and the result of a fusion between tradition and modern elements. The ideal support to collect and capture the most of the flow of thoughts, putting order into ideas.
My “Quaderni di carattere” will be sorted by vintages in the library so as to leave no escape thoughts and emotions, fixing them forever. Giving the illusion to the writer that will imprint in the minds of those who read, as well as sheets remain “marked” by writing. Moreover, the word “taccuino” comes from the Arabic tagwim that means just do order.
In addition, personally hand-write, with a much gentler pace than that of typing on a keyboard, it relaxes me a lot. And what better way to take notes on the first and “old” notebook?
Only replace it with diaries, notebooks and notepads more and more beautiful and more diverse, with ironic covers printed with elaborate graphics and unique typographic, never perfectly equal to each other.
In addition to the release of their elaborate, from posters to books, David and Silvia also implement projects tailored using a Heildeberg, which allows more long runs and an objective precision, creating a graphic and typographic developed that has the taste of the past.
So why settle as did the protagonist of the novel “A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway in “notebooks with a blue cover and two pencils” when there are artists-artisans like Davide and Silvia who create original and beautiful products: the Quaderni di carattere!
Waiting for the new site www.quadernidicarattere.it Daniele e Silvia works are here: https://www.etsy.com/it/shop/QuaderniDiCarattere?ref=hdr_shop_menu
