Three compact notebooks with colorful tropical and cityscape illustrations arranged next to a white computer keyboard.

City Pop on Your Desk: Nakabayashi Puts Flat-Lay Binding Into a Retro CD Jewel Case

Shirogane

October 13, 2026

Stationery

New Product

Nakabayashi is leaning into early Heisei-era nostalgia with its new Compact Notebook (コンパクトノート) lineup, rolling out across Japan in early October 2026. Sized to match the exact square footprint of a standard CD jewel case (142 × 125 mm), the format is designed specifically to tuck into the dead space between a laptop keyboard and the desk edge without crowding your workspace.

Three Nakabayashi compact notebooks featuring retro city pop illustrations arranged on a black desk mat next to a keyboard. — Nakabayashi's retro CD design gives a nice city pop accent to your desk

The practical selling point here isn't just the retro aesthetic, but the engineering under the spine. Nakabayashi licensed the patented "horizontal flat-opening" (suihei-biraki) binding developed by Tokyo’s Nakamura Print Co., known across Japan as Ojiichan no Note ("Grandpa's Notebook"). The spine lets pages lie completely flat at 180 degrees with zero gutter bulge, meaning you can write smoothly right up to the inner margin without wrestling the book down with your wrist. Because the spread lays flush without shadows, pages scan or photocopy cleanly, and individual sheets can be peeled out smoothly from the spread to double as quick memos or handouts.

An open white notebook lying flat on a desk being written in with a pink pencil. — These notebooks lay completely flat with zero bulge, great for left-handed writers

The covers lean into retro graphic pop, featuring four city-pop landscape illustrations (coastal drives, twilight skylines, and diner tables), a photographic breakfast still life, and a graphic metallic CD print designed to stand upright on a desk corner like an album from 1992.