Hobonichi 5-Year Techo Cover: Hiroko Kubota - The Sea's Dream at Dawn

A cover for the 5-Year Techo carrying a painting by Hiroko Kubota, and it rewards being looked at repeatedly, which is the sensible ambition for something you will hold every day for five years. The scene is the sea at dawn: meteors falling through a pale blue sky like grains of sugar, a lighthouse keeping time with its light, flying fish stitching seams across the water.

The details are the point. A cat rides a boat with a bucket marked salt beside it, since regulating the ocean's salt has evidently been its job all along. Gantry cranes stand about like giraffes having a conversation. One meteor, larger than the rest, is picked out in gold foil and catches the light as the book turns. The sky and sea carry on inside the cover, the bookmark is a pale grey with a muted sheen, and the pen hook holds a pen by its clip.

Features

• A painted dawn scene by Hiroko Kubota, dense with small incidents

• One meteor picked out in gold foil

• The artwork continues onto the inside of the cover

• A pale grey bookmark and a clip-style pen hook

• 165 x 266 x 3 mm (6.5 x 10.5 x 0.1 in) and about 77 g, polyester

• Made for the Hobonichi 5-Year Techo, not for an Original or Cousin