Header: Courtesy of Moleskine
Get ready to reconnect with the simple power of pen and paper. At this year’s Milan Design Week, Moleskine, famous for its notebooks, has put handwriting front and center with its “Unleash Your Genius” experience at BASE. It’s all about how writing or drawing by hand can kickstart creativity and help organize thoughts.
Step inside the creative mind
The main attraction was hard to miss: a giant sculpture of a human brain, folded origami-style from Moleskine paper. It’s a big visual statement about where ideas begin. Alongside this, you could also find an installation of open Moleskine notebooks, just waiting for visitors to fill them with their own sketches and notes. Throughout the week, artists and calligraphers lead hands-on workshops, letting people explore different ways to make marks on paper. The whole setup aimed to be a free-flowing space for imagination.
Giving paper and people a new start
Moleskine also used the event to show off some interesting projects focused on reuse and giving materials a second life. They call this focus on thoughtful creating “mental ecology.”
One key partner was MADE IN CARCERE, a social enterprise that helps incarcerated women in Italy gain skills by making accessories from recycled materials. Together, they’ve transformed unsold Moleskine planners into neat, foldable paper shopping bags. These were available at the Moleskine pop-up store at BASE, and all the money raised helped support MADE IN CARCERE’s work.
In another effort to find new uses for old products, Moleskine worked with Dow Polyurethanes and TECMAC on a test project. They figured out how to turn the covers of unsold planners into floor tiles – a smart example of finding new uses for materials.
Master papermaker Sandro Tiberi was also involved. Known for his experimental paper recycling, he has created a special wallpaper using recovered Moleskine products. During Milan design Week, Tiberi was on-site with his mobile paper mill, showing visitors how paper can be recycled. This demonstration was part of the larger Comieco Paper Week initiative happening across Italy.
Notebooks become furniture
Working with Quadra, the design firm that helps shape Moleskine’s stores, the brand was showing off unique furniture in which the notebook itself is part of the design. Imagine pieces that can change shape or function based on how many notebooks are slotted into them. One example is a fun wooden stool with a seat you can adjust, which also serves as storage. The idea is to create adaptable and built-to-last furniture.
Creativity on display
The Moleskine Foundation also had a presence, showing artworks created on Moleskine notebooks from its collection. These unique pieces were displayed in clear cases, showcasing a wide range of styles and messages. Featured artists include Hailu Kifle, Ava Chowdhury-Turner, Polina Levishko, Bili Bidjocka, and Bettina Malcomess, Munashe Munyavi, Hamza Kimera, Kellyn Lisbeth Cordoba, and Seven Hills. It underlines the core belief shared by Moleskine and the Foundation: that creativity is a powerful resource we can all use to build a better future, starting with simple marks on paper.
Overall, Moleskine’s “Unleash Your Genius” offered a thoughtful look at how the basic act of handwriting connects to bigger ideas about creativity, personal expression, and finding clever ways to reuse materials.
