Nora’s Notebooks

This is conceptual book design project inspired by my late grandmother’s travel journals. I stumbled upon her collection of notebooks at my grandparents’ house in Bray (Ireland) when rooting around her old art supplies. One particular notebook caught my attention, a travel journal from 1973, from when she and my grandfather visited Iceland. I had been touring in Iceland by bicycle a few months before finding this book and had embedded many picturesque landscapes of the country into my memory. No need to use words, in some instances her line drawings and sketches communicated specific areas so accurately that I knew exactly where she was. It is at that moment that I knew I had found something special.

Although I would like to pursue a larger project involving the hundreds of scans of her notes and drawings, this small book project allowed me to learn a little bit more about this strong and inspiring woman who spent a lot of time scribbling in her notebooks. I chose three of her most detailed travel books for the project: the 1973 trip to Iceland, and a visit to the Canadian North (Kuujjuarapik & Whapmagoostui) in 1989 and again in 1994. Its shape and size reflect the pocket format of most notebooks she seemed to own. A handstitched kettle-style binding was used to reflect Nora’s craft and artistic skills. The content makes the reader travel to these locations by sharing hand-drawn sketches, stories, and observations made by my grandmother.