Product Design / Matchbox Journal

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Five months ago, my father had a rough period with the kidney removal surgery, and after 7 days in hospital he returned home.

My mom took extensive care of him and now he is recovering very well.

Two months after the surgery, I was thinking how to engage him in some kind of creative activity.
Then I remembered that back in 1982 when he was a young JNA (Yugoslavian National Army) soldier, he made his Army Journal with covers made of matches. He still keeps his journal, and when I was a child I would look at that journal impressed by all those textures.

I realized that that was it. That is the activity I was looking for to help my father work again. So, after a while I developed the concept, named the project, designed inner covers and the logo.

He accepted this challenge to work on it and after few days he created the first product. Product by product his creations became more diverse and the textures more complex. My father is a very innovative and creative guy, but has no education in any kind of visual art nor did he work as an artist/designer. He applied his creativity in his daily hard working job.

I am very excited about it and how it looks and feels under the fingers, I can't express it with these photos.

This kind of creative work really motivated him, to see his potential, and that really inspired me to reconnect with him more deeply and to be proud that we made something together.

So, this is our 2nd "Matchbox Journal" collection (new ones are in the process of creation) and every product will have different patterns.

Every cover is made of 500-600 matches, burned, cut and glued into different patterns.
It takes 4 days to create one journal.
The Matchbox Journal contains 98 blank pages.