Last year, we announced that the Field Journal Notebook was amongst several designs retiring to make room for new ones. We never really like retiring designs, but we'd crunched the numbers and made up our minds. And that, we thought, was that.

Then the emails and phone calls started coming in: did we have any Field Journal Notebooks left? Couldn't we make just one more batch? We thought about it, we considered it seriously. We remembered how you've taken the Field Journal Notebook amazing places (to record your observations of bears and to conduct interviews and research at refugee camps). Tom recalled how fond of the FJN he was, of the hours and hours he spent refining it.

In spite of all that, we felt we simply had to stand firm in our resolve to retire the FJN. After all, we must retire older designs at some point to make room for the new designs we come up with. But the emails and phone calls didn't stop – the Fans of the Field Journal Notebook had become a force to be reckoned with.

Then we came up with a work around, a diplomatic compromise if you will: we could make the FJN new again, by offering two optional organizational inserts – we could all have our cake and eat it too. One organizational insert would have slots for pens/pencils and a small zippered mesh pocket for erasers, lead refills, and other small items. The other organizational insert would have an open-top pocket sized to fit notebooks around the size of Field Notes, or big phones.

The Field Journal Notebook remains as it was: designed originally for biologists and geologists working in the wilderness, the Field Journal Notebook is a useful tool for artists, writers, and anyone who, for reasons aesthetic or practical, wants an alternative to electronic devices. Essentially, the Field Journal Notebook is a compact, portable, weatherproof, zippered notebook for note-taking, journaling, or sketching.

The two new organizational inserts for the Field Journal Notebook are:

Field Journal Notebook Organizational Insert, Pen/Pencil
The front of this insert has six pen/pencil slots and a small zippered pocket (perfect for erasers or earbuds). The back features a length-wise zippered pocket.

Field Journal Notebook Organizational Insert, Pocket
The front of this insert has an open-top pocket which nicely fits Field Notes or an iPhone 6 Plus. The back features a length-wise zippered pocket.

Left: Field Journal Notebook Organizational Insert, Pocket and Right: Field Journal Notebook Organizational Insert, Pen/Pencil

The back pocket of the Field Journal Notebook Organizational Insert (same for both the Pen/Pencil and Pocket versions).

And to celebrate the return of the Field Journal Notebook, we've included two postcards with postage affixed (for mailing within the U.S. -- folks outside the U.S. will need to add postage).

One of postcard is addressed to us, with the other side completely blank; we're hoping that you'll use this postcard to send us a doodle, illustration, poem, haiku, or just a note. When you send this postcard back to us, we'll pin it up on the walls of our Seattle factory.

The other postcard features a watercolor illustration by the artist Dan Bransfield. It's ready for the address of your friend, family member, pen pal, or to whomever you'd like to send a note.

Below is our new video for the Field Journal Notebook and some photos of it in-use.