SPECULATIVE NAMING

Blue Books are making a comeback in classrooms as an anti-AI gambit. Students hand write test answers in these simple side-stapled booklets.

I always loved the simplicity of blue books, down to the unbothered redundancy of the title-subtitle:

BLUE BOOK

EXAMINATION BOOK

First thought, best thought, I guess. Just don't let that principle carry over to your essay writing.

I remember breathlessly writing about solar energy during my science test in 6th grade. We’d studied it for almost the whole year because Mrs. Miller was obsessed. Teachers’ obsessions were contagious. Ms. Gross taught us calligraphy and the Holocaust, so forever, I see THE HOLOCAUST written newspaper headline style in calligraphy.

My solar energy essay kept going and going. I'd caught Mrs. Miller's obsession. We all expected it to sweep the nation. I remember the last line I wrote in the Blue Book Examination Book I included stage direction:

[sweep of hand] "...will soon be a reality!"

What I didn't love about BLUE BOOK EXAMINATION BOOKS is that they underestimated my needed page count. I went to the front of the classroom for another booklet and wrote "1 of 2" on the upper right corner, but what if they got separated and my essay seemed to end without conclusion?

To the rescue: Blue Book Self-Examination blank books to take you back to days of scribbling an essay on images of miniaturization and petrifaction in Wuthering Heights. Let's go, middle-finger callus!

The cover subtitle typeface is Draft Paper Regular Typeface by Beth Mathews, whose love for signage inspired me to find my ID badge from when my cousin and I ran a detective agency. For our business cards, we’d repurposed cardstock wallets that were popular giveaways from banks and lumber stores. They had plastic panels perfect to flash a badge.

BLUE BOOK SELF-EXAMINATION BOOK