Design

Publisher: Witty Will Save the World, Co.
Dimensions: 6 x 6 in
Year: 2010-2015

A resurrection of a childhood artifact, the slumbook helps you compile your friends' profiles and messages, pre-Facebook style.

Kids from the '80s and '90s will know: before Facebook, there was the slam book, or in Philippine parlance, the slumbook. If you wanted to create a profile and write on a friend's wall, you did it on each other's slumbooks. The slumbook vanished from bookstores in the noughties, so my friends and I thought of bringing it back. At the time it seemed like a zany idea, but the risk paid off eventually, with the old-school slumbook regaining popularity after our release.

Slumbook questions were updated, made wittier and more vernacular. In its various editions, our slumbook cover is always a simple one-color design, a marked departure from the colorful covers of the 90s. Inside, handwritten type is combined with a clean sans serif. With tongue-in-cheek questions and contemporary pop references, the overall effect is a more grown-up but nonetheless fun version of the slumbook. A “Table of Friends” was added so that you can easily track where your friends signed. For the notebook part, pages were kept unlined and little surprises placed on random pages.

Buy via Witty Will Save the World, Co.
Read the Philippine Daily Inquirer feature