Hasta La Ideas

A new diary offers up a fresh start, the promise of a whole year conveyed through clean, blank pages. But what if it told of the cold hard truths that lay ahead? The Disappointments Diary 2013 does just that…

Published by Asbury & Asbury, designed by Jim Sutherland at Hat-trick Design and written by Nick Asbury, this is a week-to-view diary with a decidedly downbeat take on the regular pocket planner.

The diary itself is bookended by pages detailing Notable Deaths and ‘Onset of Night (sunset times)’ at the front, and empty space for lists of Imaginary Friends and – always useful for those introspective moments on public transport – Notes Toward An Unnecessary Verse Drama, at the back.

As diaries go, this thing practically shrugs “meh” at your elastic-banded Moleskine.

Each week has an accompanying proverb to fill you with inspiration, too. These range from the pithy “What doesn’t kill you makes you wish it had” and “No news is increasingly worrying” to the more philosophical, “Every cloud has a silver lining around its heavy grey mass of imminent rain”.

Keen-eyed CR blog readers will also have noticed a slight differentiation in the shading of the pages in the diary. As Asbury confirmed by email, this is indeed the case, reflective of course of a sense of encroaching doom (and not that he photographed them in a darkened room, on his own, at 2am).

“There are many diaries out there designed to motivate and inspire, but there’s a certain value in a diary that grounds you and even brings you down,” says Asbury. “That in itself can be a kind of inspiration.”

The Disappointments Diary 2013 is available in a limited edition of 1,000 numbered copies from disappointmentsdiary.com; £10 (plus £1 postage in the UK). Orders will ship November 14.