I love notebooks and I cannot lie.

It’s true, and I especially love pocket notebooks, which is why I’ve been highlighting outstanding pocket notebook companies like Field Notes and Story Supply Co, on my blog as of late.

But there are more notebook makers out there that deserve some time in the Cuppa SEO Spotlight Series, so today we’re highlighting Justin Ryan books, creators and sellers of handmade pocket notebooks.

In case you’re new to our spotlight series, it always highlights an amazing small business or designer that stands out from the crowd for their excellent service, products, creations — and all-around awesomeness. It’s a small way for us to “give back” to the brands that bring us joy, and help us accomplish our work.

Without further profusion of words on my part, let’s get to know Justin Ryan books …

1. Who Are You?

Our team is made up of myself, Justin, and my wife, Krystal. We lived on opposite sides of the country and somehow found each other, moved to Texas, got married and we now have two beautiful children, Owen and Evelyn. 

2. What Do You Do?

We sell a variety of hand-made pocket-sized notebooks and log books. I’ve been a graphic designer my whole adult life, so I use my skillset to design all of our products. From there, Krystal handles all of the production. She is keen to details and makes sure each book set is made perfectly. She also handles all of our social media postings and engages with our customer base. All of our notebooks come with specially designed covers with your choice of 32 pages of blank, lined, graph, or dot grid inner paper. They’re perfect for journaling, note-taking, doodling, and lists!

Our logbooks are what initially got us started! We have been avid collectors of a few different pocket notebook brands. We also, for years, have been pizza lovers. We combined the two and created a pocket-sized logbook that you can carry along to all of your fave pizza joints and rate them based on taste and atmosphere! From there we just kept branching out and now have a total of 7 food/beverage related logbooks. Our newest releases being The Wine Logbook and The Beer Logbook!

3. Why Do You Love Doing It?

Our small book business is our side passion project. We both currently work full-time jobs and as I’m sure a lot of the world can relate, we weren’t feeling inspired creatively a lot of times. We wanted something to fulfill our creative side, but also give us something we could connect and do together with each other! We spend our evenings each night coming up with new ideas together and working on fulfilling orders that came in during the day.

Our favorite part of what we do and what makes us love doing it, is we truly believe in and USE our products. We take our logbooks when we go out for dinner with our family and get our children involved in filling them out. We’ve inspired our oldest son, Owen, to use his creativity and come up with his very own ideas for logbooks he would love to see in our shop. He makes prototypes of his own for us all the time and we are currently in the process of making his very own creation, The ABC Adventure Logbook. Seeing his eyes light up when he sees his ideas come to life in front of him is ultimately why we love doing what we do!

4. How Does it Help People?

We believe our product can be useful in day to day tasks. Putting pen (or pencil) to paper is said to help with retention when compared to typing. Journaling can also play a huge role in helping those currently struggling with anxiety or depression. There are positive benefits to putting goals, plans, feelings, and thoughts on paper. We hope, at the end of the day, something as simple as a notebook can make a small difference. 

5. How do you find inspiration for the art you create?

I feel like inspiration can be found anywhere and everywhere! Our first books were born out of my love for pizza and the classic winking pizza chef. For our coffee books, I combined my love of coffee with my east coast roots and I heavily referenced the anthora, which is a hugely popular paper cup design that is used in New York City. A lot of what I do is nostalgia-based and can eventually be traced back to something from my childhood.

6. I see that you currently offer a “Coffee Log Book”

•  What’s YOUR favorite coffee?
  I love an espresso over ice, cold brew or – when I’m looking for something sweet – I like an iced mocha made with oat milk.
•  Any plans for more special coffee-centric art anytime soon?
  We definitely have plans to expand our offering in the coffee category. Currently, we’re in talks with a couple of shops around the country about offering custom books for them and we also have a custom cold brew book that we make for Cold Brew Crew from San Diego, California. In 2020, I hope to have more coffee offerings on the site, including more books, art prints, and other accessories.

If you’d like to get to know Justin Ryan books better, or buy some awesome notebooks from them (use coupon code coffee10 for a 10% discount), feel free to check out their website or their Instagram page.

(Note: Cuppa SEO is not an affiliate of Justin Ryan books, and receives no compensation for this article or for any purchases made on their website — we’re just big fans!)

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