Jordan Monnet · The maker behind Studio Monjo
Why I make
notebooks.
I’m a French maker in Seoul. I fold, sew and check every notebook myself. But what interests me most is what happens after it leaves my hands.
Why a notebook?
My grandmother learned to write with a dip pen. I grew up with fountain pens. Later, I spent many years working in artificial intelligence. The tools changed, but the physical act of writing stayed with me: a pen, ink, paper, and the pause before a line.
Working among words that can be generated so quickly made me appreciate something else: taking the time to write by hand and allowing a thought to wander. Studio Monjo began with that feeling.
A notebook makes room for that time. You can turn an idea over, cross something out, draw beside it, or leave a page unfinished. It holds the way you think, as well as the words you finally choose.
Why make it by hand?
Folding the sheets, drawing the thread through the spine, checking a finished notebook: these are small, repeated actions, but they make the object personal. Every notebook carries some of my time and attention.
I leave the pages blank. There are lined and grid guides if you need them, but no prescribed way to fill the book. I want the care I put into making it to become an invitation for someone else to use it.
I put my soul into each notebook,
so you can fill it with your own.
Robey
Seeing the world with Robey
Robey is a small robot meeting the human world for the first time. Through his eyes, I draw moments we can become too used to seeing: falling petals, a library, a walk beneath the trees.
I want to look again at what makes us human, and at the things that make our world beautiful and surprising. Each illustrated notebook holds the beginning of that story. Its blank pages leave room for yours.
The Robey collectionWhen the notebook changes hands
The story that stayed with me.
At a market, a child became absorbed in Robey’s story. They wanted to draw inside the notebook and invent his next adventure, and worked hard to persuade their mother.
When the notebook was finally theirs, they asked me to write a short message on the first page. I loved the thought that a story I had begun could continue in someone else’s imagination. I still hope that notebook is filling up with their own wonderful stories.
That is why meeting people at markets matters to me. I hear what they see in a cover, what they feel about Robey, and what they want to put on the pages. These encounters stay with me when I return to the studio.
Jordan MonnetMaker & illustrator · Seoul
