Roterfaden's "Pocket Companion' "

The Taschenbegleiter hand-made planner system from German artisan cooperative Roterfaden features a modular organizational system that grows with the user's ambitions.

- REINHARD KARGL

Wouldn't it be great if a paper planner offered flexibility similar to a portable digital device? What if it would allow you to file, find, and retrieve information quickly, while still keeping the tactile feel of pen and paper? And what if the information it contains is stored in flexible modules, as in digital devices and their customizable, switchable, and removable apps?

In the early 2000s, Beate Mangrig was studying at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, the University of Art and Design in Saarbrücken, Germany. She had been keeping notebooks since the age of nine. Even as a schoolgirl, she was known for constantly doodling and jotting down random thoughts and impressions—a practice not wholeheartedly encouraged in the rather strict and rigid German school system. (Having gone through it myself, I can relate).

Mangrig became fascinated with the ways people use their personal notebooks, planners, and calendars both as an outlet for their creativity as well as for organizing thoughts and useful information. She dug into the subject so deeply that she ended up writing her academic thesis on it. It occurred to her that there had to be a way to design a better, modular planner. For this, Mangrig came up with a unique and patentable-clip mechanism inside a folder, which allowed for maximum flexibility and modularity. Her system didn't require any holes to be punched, and it could be used with a wide variety of papers, formats, and notebooks of different makes and construction.

Mangrig's thesis (which received the highest grade from the university and was honored with a distinction) led to a start-up company called Roterfaden and a product line called Taschenbegleiter. (Roter Faden can be translated to "red thread" and Taschenbegleiter to "pocket companion").