Commitment to Craft

Paper Cover

Paper Cover

Why the MD Notebook Cover
is made from Cordoba

Like many items we use in our daily lives, we become fond of our notebooks.

And that makes us want to handle them with care, the way we might faithfully water flowers or lovingly oil a pair of leather shoes.

Have you ever put an uncovered notebook into your bag and then wished you hadn’t when the cover or the pages became torn and dirty?

MD Notebook Cover protects your MD Notebook while perfectly complementing its texture.

At first glance, Cordoba looks like tanned leather, but it’s actually a smooth, moist-textured paper.

It provides the elegant look of leather while being extremely light in weight.

It is stronger and harder than you ever imagined paper could be, and one touch shows you just how robust it is.

The cover is made from a single piece of Cordoba, folded on each side to make pockets for the notebook cover.

The simplicity of this structure belies the careful work behind it.

Cordoba is not like the paper you write and draw on.

It’s thicker and denser, which makes it firmer than thinner paper or leather.

So if we don’t fold it just right, it will buckle and cracks will appear at the folds.

Folding is done with a jig and a roller, but the most important part of all is the work done with our craftspeople’s own hands.

They place the roller on the Cordoba, gently but with just the right amount of force, and move the roller until the fold gradually becomes sharper.

Our experienced craftspeople are experts at folding, but making those sharp folds in the Cordoba is challenging work even for them.

It takes a lot of failed efforts before they can get it right.

When you look at the folded cover, you can see a little space left over, so that the notebook cover can be inserted.

The folding done for this cover is reminiscent of sharpening a knife.

Then it’s time to finish the pockets. Thin tape 2mm wide is placed along the top and bottom as a guide for the straight seams that are sewn. The stray thread at the ends is burned away with a lighter to complete the process. All of this work is done by hand.

So why all this effort?

Why do we work with a material that requires so much difficult work by hand when there are much easier ways to make a cover?

Because this cover encapsulates everything we value at MD PAPER PRODUCTS™.

We use the best materials and put the utmost care into everything we make.

Our products are something special, something to use with love day after day.

And since notebooks themselves are made of paper, what could be a more fitting material for a cover?

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