History in a nutshell – Graphic designer Wout Jonker is looking for a diary for his own use in late 1980. He marvels at the nonsensical offerings in bookstores and department stores. He formulated the criteria his pocket diary should meet and made a design.
In 1981, a small print run is printed and distributed to interested parties. Based partly on their findings, Wout Jonker elaborates the design further. After eleven diaries in Dutch, a multilingual edition was published in 1994 under the name Hinosx. Distribution is worldwide, partly through bookstores and design and museum shops and partly online.
The Hinosx diary
A minimalist designed diary with maximum writing space. The pages are made of fine, opaque and highly writable paper. The hand-finished binding allows the diary to be laid open, making use of every square inch of paper. The diary has a layout with one week per double page and a handy size.
The Hinosx diary can be ordered at woutjonker.nl
Interview 1996 / 2024
When the fifteenth edition of his diary was published in 1996, Wout Jonker produced a booklet containing an interview. Now, twenty-eight years later, this publication repeats part of the 1996 interview and adds new questions and answers. Publication of this booklet was planned at the same time as the publication of the fortieth edition of the diary in 2021. That could not go ahead then due to circumstances.
1996
INTERVIEWER: The diary you started in 1982 first appeared as ‘Pocket Diary’, then as ‘Pocket Diary Wout Jonker’ and now as ‘Hinosx Diary’. What does ‘Hinosx’ mean.
JONKER: It is the name of a letter I made especially for the 1987 diary. With that typeface, the H, I, N, O, S, X, 1, 8 and 0 can be rotated 180 degrees without visible consequences.
I.: The word is difficult to pronounce: HIENOSKS.
J.: Yes.
I.: The first edition was presented as ‘Pocket diary’. That name sounds absolute, did you mean to indicate that you had created THE pocket diary.
J.: No, one.
I.: To put next to the other diaries in the shop.
J.: No, that came later.
I.: You primarily wanted to show what you think a diary looks like.
J.: Yes.
I.: You felt there was something wrong with the rest of the offer. What, for example.
J.: Too full, intrusive, tied up in all sorts of inappropriate ways and ugly.
I.: It follows that someone would create such an empty diary in response to diaries filled with an excess of data. It is understandable that a designer would be attracted to the design of the utilitarian diary. But then once or twice and not for 15 years without fundamentally changing the design.
J.: That continuity is important for reflection and reaction. Incidentally, for me the form did change fundamentally. For example, in terms of typography. First I used an existing typeface in two contrasting weights. Later, I no longer started from an existing letter, but made full-size drawings of double pages with a thin pen that served as a starting point for the proportions and contrasts. From these, I styled the font I now use, which was named ‘Nontype’ to indicate that it is a letter with little character.
I.: When you create a diary design like yours, the type of paper used is naturally important, because that is what you essentially offer. You have used different types: light wood-based write, wood-free write, even bank stationery and now for some time wood-free offset. Are you satisfied with the paper used now.
J.: It is the most suitable I can get.
I.: What does ideal diary paper look like.
J.: Thin, smooth but not slippery, hard but not too translucent.
I.: You also found the binding very important from the start. The diary should ‘automatically’ stay open and the binding itself should not be an obstacle. So no ring binder or spiral binding, because according to you that would make it impossible to write on half the pages.
J.: To be able to use every square centimetre of paper in a pleasant way, there is really only one binding method left.
2024
I.: After this 1996 interview, you wrote a text on the diary history when the thirtieth edition was published in 2011. That text was printed in an illegibly small font (three point) on the back of the holiday insert. The text began as follows: ‘Dear diary user, the diary history below has been added to this insert on the occasion of the anniversary year 2012. The text has been written especially for those who can make it readable to themselves with a magnifying glass or by other means.’ You required the reader to make an extra effort to start reading the text. You had done the same in the 1996 interview booklet by printing black text on dark grey paper. Even there, the visibility of the text was minimal.
J.: The visibility may have been minimal, but the readability was not.
I.: You are deliberately creating a barrier with that. Most people won’t bother to decipher your message.
J.: Yes, and that ties in nicely with the diary I wanted to create from the start: as a personal ego document. In the very first edition, I used the principle of the ‘blind card’ to divide the pages. I mentioned dates, months and days only in the first week of the year; after that, dates and months had to suffice, without the days. This layout, with a fixed unique place on the page for each day (Sunday, Monday, etc.), should become self-evident in everyday use. A code known only to the user.
I.: The second edition does include the names of the days.
J.: I sent a questionnaire to all users of the first diary. This showed that some of them did not use the diary on a daily basis, so the ‘obviousness’ was lost.
I.: When I list the diaries from 1994 to 2024, I see that the design hardly changed in those years. What did change was the packaging and the holiday insert. The cardboard sleeve disappeared after 2015. From 2016, the diary was shrink-wrapped. The insert sheet became a wrapper in 2016 and 2017 and then an insert sheet again. From 2023, the list of holidays on the back of the insert sheet disappeared.
J.: There were several reactions to this last change. A number of diary users from the first hour asked me for an explanation. I was glad they took the trouble to get in touch. I responded as follows: ‘The diary is increasingly being ordered from countries whose holidays are not mentioned on the insert. I have actually found that a bit strange for years. But anyway… then you can do two things: keep expanding the information on holidays to include more countries or omit the holidays altogether. I have done the latter.’
I.: From 1995 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2015, the diary was packaged in a cardboard sleeve. From 2016, this packaging was replaced by shrink wrap.
J: There have been many reactions to that. Some used the cardboard sleeve to put the diary back in at the end of the year to keep it.
I: Surely it was also a nice packaging, perfectly suited to the atmosphere of a paper diary with a linen cover. Why did it disappear.
J.: The cardboard sleeve was too fragile. The diaries are sometimes on display for all to see in book and design shops from mid-September to the end of December. During that period, the cardboard can start looking very thumbed.
I.: When you were an aspiring designer designing a diary in the early 1980s, it was natural for it to be made of paper. There was then a wide range of ‘normal’ diaries with a calendar and added information, such as maps, weights and measures, titles and the birthdays of members of the royal family. In addition, you had many themed diaries for all kinds of specific audiences. You seriously wanted to add something to these that wasn’t already there. Your agenda, what should it look like. Or, above all, what was it not supposed to look like. What was the starting point.
J.: Designing in this case is acting with additional thoughts. You start with what you know and gradually it becomes clear what you want to keep and what you want to remove. Because this is an everyday utensil, I was extra critical on a number of points. I wanted as little ballast as possible (manageable size, light weight) and as much writing space as possible. In this respect, my principles at the time could be subsumed under the heading ‘environmental agenda’ (economical with space, resources and energy), but of an atypical kind. A typical environmental agenda around 1980 looked something like this: the inside made of recycled paper, use of colour referring to something plant-based, an informal font for the text and with the recycled logo somewhere in a prominent place.
I.: You thought this typical environmental agenda was a waste of space and energy. A lot of fuss to raise its profile, but counterproductive. Does that apply to more things that are emphatically designed.
J.: Yes.
I.: You mean that many things have a superficial interchangeable exterior that adds nothing essential to the thing itself. And that it’s all just meant to appeal to a certain group of people. And that design is used to establish communication with that target group.
J.: Yes.
I.: Surely that is what a professional designer does: design something on behalf of a private individual or body that wants to communicate or sell something to a particular audience.
J.: Yes. And in a way, it does help ‘humanity’ move forward by constantly reshaping a bit to changing trends.
I.: But still you find this design a waste of space and energy.
J.: Yes.
I.: Could this be done differently.
J.: If client and designer are on the same page or are one and the same person with the clear goal of doing it better.
I.: And that was the case with you. It started as an investigation into what your ideal agenda would be. And when the design was there, you wanted to test in practice whether it worked. For that, it was necessary to turn it into an edition product.
J.: Yes, fortunately from the start I found enough people who were interested.
I.: In the early 1980s, when you started the diary, practically all books, newspapers and so on were still printed on paper. Since then, the world has gone digital. This has had profound effects on the print media. The number of people still reading a paper book or newspaper has shrunk. Also, many companies that produce, process and distribute printed matter have disappeared, such as printing companies, binderies and bookshops. Which change have you noticed the most.
J.: Especially the disappearance of book and design shops from the inner cities has reduced the sale of diaries. That was the place where an interested public could ‘accidentally discover’ the diary. A number of diary users have informed me that this is how they bought their first copy. That they walked into a bookstore while walking through a city and saw the diary. And have been ordering one or more copies every year ever since.
I.: That sounds nostalgic, the good old days and all that.
J.: Yes.
I.: People can now order your diary online.
J.: Yes.
I.: You have seen different trends and developments come by from 1980 onwards. For now, a kind of balance has emerged between paper and electronic. It seemed a matter of time that the paper diary would disappear altogether, but a movement in the other direction has also been signalled. What are the pros and cons of paper and digital.
J.: To be able to say something about that, I collected as many arguments from both sides as possible. That was not difficult, because a lot of people have already dealt with that. Everything I found I summarised in four lists (see below).
I.: Did you notice anything.
J.: You can see from the lists that the digital diary is more for someone who is looking for a certain convenience and is therefore prepared to allow outside access to his/her daily activities. The consumer for whom the latest smartphone is a must-have uses a digital diary. A paper diary is used by someone who likes to be able to oversee the daily or weekly schedule at a glance. With maximum freedom to decide on the form and content of what is noted down, without having to adapt to the rules and features of a device. He/she ends up with a personal document that can be consulted for days to come.
Advantages Digital
- You always have your calendar with you on your phone.
- You can lose your mobile, but not your calendar, because it’s in the cloud.
- From an electronic calendar, you can link to other apps or send an e-mail or plan a route.
- Notes and attachments can be added per appointment.
- You can easily adjust your schedule by moving or changing dates, no need to cross out or erase anything.
- Invite someone to an appointment via e-mail. If you are invited yourself, you can accept the appointment and it will be placed directly in your calendar.
- You can link categories and tags to your activities, so you can filter and find your tasks and appointments.
- It’s free. Your phone usually has a free calendar function that can often be linked to various online apps.
- You can share an electronic calendar or planner with others, e.g. family members or colleagues.
- You have the option to set a reminder or alarm, so as not to forget appointments or tasks.
- Recurring appointments or tasks only need to be entered once. For example, submitting your accounts monthly or invoicing your customers weekly.
- Celebrations and birthdays only need to be entered once, and are also recorded for the following years.
- Give appointments their own colour. For example, private appointments can be marked in blue and business appointments in green.
- Synchronisation means your calendar is on multiple devices. If you are working on your computer at home, you don’t need to reach for your mobile phone to see what is in your diary.
Disadvantages Digital
- An electronic diary or planner comes with a manual, a paper diary does not need one.
- If your phone or computer is empty or broken, you cannot access your appointments and planning.
- Updates and crashes interfere with something that should give you peace of mind and overview.
- Fidgeting on a small screen.
- On a digital device, you have to scroll and click to get an overview.
- You hardly write anymore, at the expense of your handwriting.
- An appointment typed in a digital diary is not memorised as well as an appointment written down in a paper diary.
- Because you can easily reschedule appointments, you are less likely to make them final.
- It is difficult to view and update your digital diary on the same device while using a mobile phone.
- To access your calendar anytime, anywhere, your data is stored in the cloud. You can only hope that big tech companies handle your personal data properly.
- If you get hacked, someone knows exactly when you are and are not at home. This can happen just like that without you even noticing. If you lose a paper diary, you can take immediate action.
- You have just started your planning and a Whatsapp message arrives. As soon as you close Whatsapp, you see that you also have a notification on Instagram. Before you know it, you are half an hour away.
- Even for those who can resist the temptations of smartphone and computer, seeing new notifications causes anxiety. These digital stimuli have a proven negative impact on attention and concentration.
- With an electronic diary, you end up losing everything you ever jotted down, because no matter what, the device goes into the trash one day.
Advantages Paper
- One-off cost for purchase, no subscription, no electricity.
- No start-up time.
- No manual or instruction needed.
- Plenty of design choices, from sleek businesslike to garishly illustrated.
- A paper diary can’t get stuck, you don’t need to charge it and it can’t crash.
- You have a notebook handy anytime, anywhere to jot down an idea or make a sketch.
- You can see at a glance the schedule for the coming days or weeks, where is there still room and when are there deadlines. No need to scroll on a fiddly screen.
- What we write down is remembered better than what we type. With handwritten notes, you have to summarise things briefly in your own words. This requires a thought process that makes the information stick better.
- You alone manage your diary, no one can schedule appointments online unsolicited.
- It is written, so it is agreed. With a paper diary, you make sure appointments are made right the first time.
- A paper diary allows you to review and update your schedule in peace and quiet, without attention-grabbing notifications and noises.
- If you are invited, you don’t have to say ‘yes’ right away. The phrase ‘I’ll just check my diary at home’ works very well to give yourself time for reflection.
- You can use your own style and system of notes. With arrows, circles, drawings, in short, whatever you find fun and practical.
- Calling with your smartphone and consulting your digital diary at the same time is quite a hassle. You have a paper diary open in front of you within seconds, ready to jot down an appointment.
- When you have finished something, you can actually cross it out. That is how you record what you have done. This is different from hitting the delete key, because it makes what you have done disappear.
- By writing regularly, you ensure that your handwriting remains beautiful and legible.
- The experience of boundless creativity. You don’t have to stick to predetermined frameworks. You may write or draw what, how and where you want.
- Over the course of the year, a unique personal document is created that can be consulted at any time, with the nice bonus that you can not only check the content of your appointments and notes, but also see how they were notated. A fleeting scribble or a controlled handwriting are more than different expressions of the same content.
- It is a special moment every year to start the new year with a new diary.
Disadvantages Paper
- Takes up space. You don’t just slip a paper diary into your pocket, so you will always need to take a bag with you.
- You can only change or delete an appointment or note by crossing it out or erasing it. Digitally, you can easily delete something.
- If you lose your paper diary, you lose everything that was in it. You don’t have a cloud backup that you can restore to a new device.
- Costs a one-off purchase fee. Many smartphones have a calendar function as standard or can be installed for free.
- No reminders. You will have to check your paper calendar regularly to see if you have appointments, as you will not get reminders in the form of an audible or spoken text.
- In the months of November and December of the old year, you often have to note down appointments in the first months of the new year. If you use a paper diary, it is inevitable that you will have two copies in use at the same time for several weeks at the end of the year.
