Mod Notebooks

Mod Notebooks sells one product: a thread bound paper notebook that ships with a pre-paid envelope, so the owner can mail it back to be scanned and read in a web app. It sells to individuals in the United States at $25, and to companies as branded editions in runs of ten or more, on Shopify behind a custom one page front end.

Website Design

A single scrolling page. The storefront is one homepage split into five anchored sections: Introduction, The Notebook, The Instructions, The Application and Order. A sticky header scrolls between them rather than loading pages.

Full viewport photography, then white. The opening panel fills the browser height with a photograph carrying the lower case wordmark, the line “A paper notebook that syncs to the cloud” and two buttons. Below it, everything reverts to white.

Light type in grey, with one accent. Body copy runs in Avenir, served from a Monotype font service, at weight 200 in a slate grey rather than black. Buttons are fully rounded, upper case and letterspaced. The only colour is a soft blue green on links.

Shopping Experience

Two bulk routes, split under the hero. Two half width photographic tiles divide the audience: Custom Corporate Gifts at 100 or more per order, and Small Batch Custom Notebooks at 10 or more. Both lead to enquiry forms.

Configuring rather than browsing. The Order section is a form, not a product grid. Shoppers pick a colour swatch, grey, red or black, then a paper type, plain, lined or dot-grid, and press Add to Cart. A Shopify collection page exists but is unlinked.

One price, stated with what it covers. The order heading reads “Order yours for just $25” over the sub line “Includes free return shipping, digitization, and the app”, so scanning is priced in rather than charged as a subscription. The cart states Ships next day.

United States only, with a waiting list. An alert in the order block states the notebook is currently available only in the United States, and offers a mailing list signup.

Brand Storytelling

The product explained as a sequence. The Instructions section numbers four steps: fill the notebook, mail it back in the envelope hidden in the back cover, have it scanned within five days, then read it in the app and choose whether the original is recycled or returned.

Specification used as proof. The Notebook section lists four claims against icons: three paper types, a binding that opens flat, a 7.7 by 5.4 inch format matched to an iPad mini, and 120GSM paper that will not bleed through.

Testimonials placed at the buy point. Short quotes sit beside the order form rather than in a review section, one reading “Beautiful product & execution. Sorry Moleskine, I have a new lover.”

Notable Features

Sync to third party storage. The Application section states that pages can be synced with Dropbox, Evernote and OneNote, under headings reading Syncs With, Works With and Coming Soon.

Embossing at ten units. The small batch page presses a company logo into each notebook free on orders of ten or more, by hand in the company’s Oklahoma City office. Corporate editions add cover colour, ribbon colour and belly bands.