There is rarely a time that I’m not carrying around a notebook.  I’m the type of person who has to write things down as soon as they pop in my brain, or I risk the chance of losing them.  Thus, I discovered Modofly and Jordan Pollard.  I was immediately in notebook heaven!  Jordan and I have chatted back and forth for over a year and it’s great fun to finally be sharing his website with you.

Working hard to have dabbled in as much as possible in this short life,
Jordan Pollard has attempted to master always taking on new experiences. With a
sincere interest in learning, and a mind that tangents exponentially,
Jordan has managed to study and practice architecture and design, work
with wood and metal, start several businesses, and has talked to more
people than names he can remember. He is deeply interested in free
culture, open source anything, collaboration of all types, idea
generators, and just about any kind of computer numerically controlled
device. He longs to own many.

“Modofly started unofficially about 3-4 years ago when I started burning Moleskines that I was using at the time to differentiate them from other Moleskin books,” says Jordan. “My background is in Architecture, so everyone I knew had one. After burning several for myself, people started asking me to burn books for them. This seemed like a great excuse to buy myself a laser cutter, so a friend and I dived head first into Modofly. We initially did our own artwork, and modified old woodcuts, but quickly realized that it would be much more exciting to work with artists and give them another medium to put their work on.”

“Our goal is to inspire artists and users alike with the hope that they themselves will be continually fueled by the feedback loop that happens when people work together. We believe in empowering artists to expand ways in which they can get their name our and make a profit doing it, so enabling them to continue their creative process.”

Jordan’s favorite experience with this profession is breaking the stereotype that all artists are divas. “Everyone I work with is exceptionally nice and easy to deal with. Sure I come across the artists that think that they are the only people creating art, but for the most part people realize that the days of kings and barons are over, and that to make a living doing this, you have to work together. There is power in numbers, and so we try to work with that.”

“At the end of last year, we retired our work with Moleskines. We found out that they had PVC in the covers, and this chemical component is not only bad environmentally, but especially bad to burn. It creates chemicals that are harmful for us to breathe while making them, and also makes hydrocloric acid, which was damaging to our machine. It was a HUGE blow to us. We really considered shutting Modofly down. What kept me going was realizing that we shouldn’t just quit because a mega corporation refused to even acknowledge our existence, and our issues with their chemical makeup. Making a new, better book that represented our artists work, wasn’t outsourced, was made of better materials, and stepped away from the Moleskine look was a form of pro-activism for us.”

“Come check out our new books that are in full color! We also have the option to customize any book for the price of one of our regular books, which is a great feature for people wanting a one off gift that is unique. We will keep making our books better and better, and as people help support us,  we will offer more unique paper types and different sizes.”

Chic Galleria and Modofly are giving away a book to one lucky Chic Galleria reader.  How do I win you ask? Just visit www.modofly.net
and check out all the incredible artwork.  Come back here and
leave a comment.  Which book design is your favorite? Bet you can’t pick just one!

Ends  June 29th midnight EST.

Congratulations Lisa~Winner!

Tags: artists, books, designs, moleskins, notebooks