Product Development

Jun 03

Custom Color Combinations for the Idea Book Systems

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We are going to offer an option on our Epokka’s Kickstarter to allow a few people to make their own bookcloth color combinations. We thought it would be a fun option for those adventurous and particular souls out there!

Koldo and I spent a few hours yesterday carefully curating and working with the distributors to come up with what we think are the most interesting range of colors to choose from: Six choices for the main outside cloth and seven choices for the front cover. No matter how you choose, you can’t help but come up with something lovely.

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Credits:
Photography: Naomi Niles.
Album cover design: unkown.

Apr 12

Love0

A cartoony cover design for the Lined Notebook

By admin Design, Product Development 2 Comments

Here is a preview of the design for Epokka’s Lined Notebook, which is mostly for writing purposes. Of all the three notebooks that we are producing, this was the most difficult because a design made of just simple lines looked boring to us. We tried different ideas but nothing seemed to work out.

Then I remembered this of Mid-Century Modern design style that we all have seen in old cartoons. It also has a musical character that reminds me a lot to the vibes sound of the cool jazz theme that I have just produced for the Epokka’s promotional video. You will be able to see it at our Kickstarter’s launch by mid-May, which makes a lot of sense to me because the design reminds me to Pink Panther cartoons and the music of our video has a lot to do with Henri Mancini’s music for the show.

So we finally found a way to make it fun and to have fun at the same time. Mission accomplie!

Apr 11

Love0

A sunny cover design for the Grid Notebook

By admin Design, Product Development No Comments

Yesterday, we finished the work on the Epokka notebook covers. Here is a preview of the design for the Dot Grid Notebook. We wanted something fun, happy and inviting. It’s very important for us to remember the feeling of work and creativity as a joyful experience.

Do you remember as a kid when you would get new school supplies? There was a unique feeling of excitement when using the new materials. You could smell them, touch them and organize them over and over before you would even start using them. That’s what we’re going for at Epokka.

So here we have a notebook to write on a grid. But… come on! It doesn’t need to be all serious and boring. It needs to be inviting because this is going to be your personal creative playground. And it’s proven that there’s nothing better for creativity than relaxing and having a little fun before you start. Like all Epokka products, it has a mid-century modern flavor; a playful feeling. We decided to bring in a feeling of joy… is there anything better than a grid made of sunny colors and stars?

Apr 01

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Introducing Epokka’s DUO!

By admin Product Development, Prototype No Comments

We promised we would share what we are making and here it is!

This is the Epokka’s DUO, the semi-final prototype of what will be our notebook system for multi-creative people in a juicy yellow and blue color scheme.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the biggest problems Koldo and I have always had is being able to keep our notebooks in one place. When we talked to other creative people, we realized that they had the same problem too. When you like to create different types of things or brainstorm in different ways, it can get messy carrying around multiple notebooks all the time.

The Duo is a way to carry two notebooks in one place, wrapped in a beautiful hardcover made with traditional bookbinding techniques for protection.

There will also be a small handy envelope in the back to carry bits of paper and notes. And not only will there be a DUO, but there will also be a TRIO (for three notebooks) and an UNO (for one notebook) for those who don’t need to carry around several notebooks, but like hardcover protection and beauty.

We have a semi-final version of the prototype of the DUO itself although the notebooks inside are still in the development stages.

We hope to have a preview of those and other fun things we’re working on in the next few weeks!

Mar 18

Love0

Prototype Refinement

By admin Product Development, Prototype No Comments

We’ve been quiet the past 2 weeks waiting on the rest of our samples to get in and refining the Epokka’s prototypes.

The prototype iteration process is a unique challenge. Originally, we did the careful measurement calculations and made a diagram on the computer. However, we quickly had to trash that idea and go with a more organic method of experimentation and refinement to get the look and feel, functionality, and best usability for the product. When you have a physical object in your hands to work with, all the best measurements and calculations in the world will only get you so far.

There are also many different criteria to look at each time. We are learning that careful documentation isn’t just a “nice-to-have” but key. The good news is that with each prototype we’re getting closer and closer!

We’ve finally narrowed down the notebook paper that we think is just amazing and we’ve also got the main color choices narrowed down to three or four schemes (none of these colors are in the photo). Choosing which to put out first will be difficult!

Now we’re still correcting the sizes and some other small technical issues. You’d be amazed at just how big a millimeter is when you need to get things perfect!

Mar 05

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Testing Inks on Paper

By admin Product Development, Research No Comments

As I mentioned in a previous post, the main problem we have been working on is finding a good solution for people who create many types of things. One of the problems with this is that it’s difficult to find just one notebook to suit different needs.

We were clear since the beginning that paper meant for drawing (with both ink and pencil) needs to be different from paper meant for taking notes or technical drawings. So, we set out on a mission to find the ideal paper for each of these uses. And boy, did we do a lot of searching!

Above you can see a few of the tests we ran with different types of ink and different types of paper. Koldo is particular about drawing paper and I’m particular about writing paper, so we put our focus on each area until we found solutions we were both happy with.

For the drawing paper, Koldo tested with various markers that are popular among artists and illustrators.

For the writing paper, we ran different tests using everything from regular cheap Bic pens to higher-end and fountain pens.

We tested for bleed-through, fuzziness, smoothness and glide, scanner friendliness, and feel of the paper. We finally found two that we think are just amazing and they are acid-free archival quality and environmentally friendly.

We can’t wait to get them into new prototypes and start the heavy field testing!

Feb 27

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Paper Decisions

By admin Product Development, Prototype No Comments

Yesterday we got a lot of paper samples in the mail. We were and still are so excited about choosing which papers to use! Some of the papers are beyond gorgeous and the colors are rich and full. It’s very exciting! But, we have to confess, it does feel a little bit overwhelming.

When you multiply that with the amount of paper samples we now have to choose from, the possibilities are about limitless, which is both a good and a bad thing.

Our initial product will have a total of 7 different papers and that’s not including any packaging.

Our next step will be spending time narrowing down the color combinations we like, making prototypes with those, and running tests on the writing paper to see which work best for all the different uses we need it for.

I believe we’ll be having a lot of meetings and a lot of coffee this week!

Feb 16

Love0

Picking Cloth Swatches

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Finding a right cloth for our forthcoming notebook products has been a challenge. We finally got all of the swatches we requested in the mail, but we’re not convinced on any yet. We decided to get the bookbinding cloth options we could find and start there because if we use another fabric, we’ll need to back it with paper and it may not be as durable as a bookbinding cloth if we don’t choose the fabric very carefully.

We requested some beautiful Japanese bookbinding cloth samples. They’re gorgeous, but most of them are shiny, which won’t suit what we want to do. They would be perfect for wedding photo albums, memory books, and other special books where something elegant is needed, but aren’t just what we need for our product.

Then there are other bookbinding cloths that we like the feel and texture of, but the colors feel a little outdated or aren’t neutral enough to be combined with other colors easily. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a decent selection of bookbinding cloth colors.

For now, we are going to keep requesting some regular fabric samples and wait for the paper samples to see how the combinations look together.