Rebook

Useful information

Team members: 56 hours design studio
Country: Netherlands
Keywords: upcycled stationery waste material notebook sketchbook locally produced

Short Description

Rebook is an upcycled notebook made out of printed paper waste.

Detailed Description

Rebook is an upcycled stationery product family, developed in collaboration of Viki Nagy and S Mate Olah since 2018. The aim of their project is to give a second life to posters and other printed materials in the form of notebooks and other stationeries. During the regular recycling process, chemicals and water are used to remove the ink and coatings from the paper. By upcycling printed media, giving them a new shape and function without recycling the papers, a new product can be manufactured with lower environmental impact. Their intention is to show one solution for repurposing used materials.
Rebook is a flexible and adaptive project taking the local sources into account. The pages of a notebook can be cut into different sizes, the cover can be made of stronger waste material like thick paper or tarp. The binding process itself can be outsourced and support socially-engaged workplaces. Until today the Studio made the books completely by hand using locally available posters in Europe

Project Details

Does your design support sustainable production, embodying circular or regenerative design practices?: The design emerged from the locally available paper waste, in the Netherlands. The biggest poster distributor of the country gave us the outdated and returned posters which we could make the notebooks. Having the support from a big, local company creates a bigger impact. And making a brand new object from otherwise waste material, in this case, the Rebooks increase the lifespan of a single paper sheet.

Does your design use principles of distribution and open source?: We facilitated free workshops in Budapest and Rotterdam where we showed the whole process of making sketchbooks step by step. With the participants, we used old papers we had and what they collected and brought with themselves to the events. During these occasions, we promote the idea of upcycling.

Does your design promote awareness of responsible design and consumption?: Both with designing objects from waste material and holding open and free workshops we are fully engaged in creating awareness around the importance of using local sources and the possibilities in everyday materials around us.