A scribble became a plan.
The story of "de KEMPEN"...
A new notebook? It’s somewhere among our other wild ideas, forget-me-nots, and shopping lists in our... notebook.
What is written down, exists. It can grow. So does our new notebook plan. In a world where everything is tucked away in digital folders, clouds, and drives, we love the tangibility of words on paper. Because there it is written: a new notebook. A scribble became a plan.
Notebooks are for everyone. For sketchers and writers. For storytellers and planners, for long-time believers and notebook virgins. It’s your life in pocket size. Your vegetable garden doesn’t care about Excel, but a notebook – complete with soil stains? Perfect. Instagram is not a travel diary – a notebook is: sketch, stick, write, keep, remember, and relive your most beautiful travel moments. Do you like to experiment in the kitchen? Your notebook is already a family heirloom. And those first words from your baby? Page 34 of your baby diary notebook.
Keywords around our own new notebook: tradition, expertise, future, inspiration. We wanted a notebook that combines the history of Brepols in printing and binding techniques, while being fresh and timeless at the same time. A notebook that invites writing and drawing. To hold and to preserve. Color? Ribbon? Something with marble paper? And the final scribble? Our name: de KEMPEN. After our roots, the history of Brepols. The soil from which our ideas grow.
... starts at BREPOLS.
Brepols, they are the ones with the diaries. Even more: the only producer of them in the Benelux and thus also the market leader. And in France, Switzerland, and several African countries, appointments are noted in a Brepols diary.
In addition, printers who want to bind and finish their printwork can also turn to our independent bookbinding factory – back to the origins of Brepols.
t’s 1796. Philippus Jacobus Brepols – a printing apprentice in Leuven – moves to Turnhout. There, he becomes the city’s printer and grows into the driving force behind the development of the Belgian graphic industry. In the 19th century, Brepols printing spreads to over a hundred countries.
A book remains a book. But book printing trends change: from missals to marble paper, from hardcover to softcover (and back again), and from ultra-thin Bible paper to eco-friendly FSC paper. Since 1796, Brepols has seen it all come – and sometimes go.
That busy printing past is long behind us. But Brepols – and thus de KEMPEN – is still produced in Turnhout. Our love for paper is reflected in all our products.
