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| Seeing double? |
I’ve been a fan of Field Notes Brand pocket-size
notebooks for years. The three-packs of paper-covered, stapled notebooks are
available in standard editions that can be purchased any time as well as
limited editions that are released quarterly. The company uses a variety of
paper types, so I’ve found only a few editions that I like to sketch in,
but I also use the other types for general notetaking. I carry one in my bag for
memos and keep others around the house to track projects. They’re very handy.
When I first heard that Field Notes had collaborated with Graduate Hotels on a new edition, it didn’t mean much to me. It wasn’t until I saw images
of the three notebook covers on Field Notes’ site that my eyes widened: Wasn’t
that the interior of Suzzallo Library (parts of which I’ve sketched numerous times) on one of the covers? And hey . . . the building shown on a
second book looked familiar, too! Then I read that the photographer had
apparently shot the cover photos for this national chain in Seattle and Berkeley.
. . it had to be Suzzallo! Indeed, two of the three cover images are of Suzzallo
(the third shows a messy office piled with books – that one must be from
Berkeley. I don’t know anything about the University of California, but surely
the photographer could have found something more inspiring on that campus!).
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| A second book cover shows Suzzallo Library's exterior. |
I ran right over to the University District, where a Graduate Hotel had opened last fall in the former Hotel Deca building. Although
the Graduate chain renovated the interior, it retained many of the 1930s Art
Deco details. It’s still a beautiful building.
After first explaining to the desk clerks what Field Notes
were and that I was certain they had some for me to purchase (it took a while
to find them in the storage room, and then another little while to figure out
how to sell them to me), I was tickled to walk out with several packs. It’s not
every day that Field Notes makes notebooks emblazoned with my alma mater!
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| The middle book's photo is the one apparently taken at Berkeley... I'm ignoring that one. |
Inside Suzzallo, I watched a young Asian woman in cap and
gown with her proud immigrant parents posing for a professional photographer.
Other grads in small groups took photos of themselves and each other. Although
now I think of Suzzallo as the place where I struggle to capture its Gothic
arches, I also always feel a wave of nostalgia for all the years I walked
through its quiet, imposing hallways (I actually spent more time studying in
the modern undergraduate library). Seeing the happy grads, I remembered fondly
the slightly scary yet exhilarating feeling of leaving those hallowed halls for
the last time as a student and marching into my future.
Officially this Field Notes edition is known as Graduate
Hotels, but I’ll always think of it as the Huskies Edition. Go Dawgs!
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| Graduate Hotels has retained many of the 1931 building's original decor. |
Very interesting! I'd assumed at least one of the not-office shots was Berkeley. That's a beautiful library! (Coincidentally, both of my parents are Huskies.)
ReplyDeleteIf I were a Cal Bear, I'd be a bit annoyed by the Huskies dominance of this edition. ;-)
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