People have been putting things into books for as long as books have existed. Commonplace books, family albums, scrapbooks, bullet journals, traveler's notebooks. It's one of the oldest creative habits there is, and right now it's having a serious moment. But with so many overlapping terms floating around, it can be a bit overwhelming and hard to know what to call what you're doing. In this video I take a walk through the different traditions, what makes each one distinct, and how they can translate into a digital practice on the iPad.

Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking as most of us know it took off in the 1990s alongside digital photography. It's fundamentally about memory keeping: photos, loved ones, moments you want to hold onto. There's often a specific aesthetic to it, lots of embellishments, coordinated papers, and a real emphasis on the photos themselves being the main point.

Digital scrapbooking has been around for years too, traditionally done in Photoshop but increasingly in apps like Procreate, Canva, and GoodNotes.

Art Journaling

Art journaling is something else entirely. It's not always about memory keeping. It's about using art the way you might use a written journal, as a way of processing thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The goal isn't a beautiful finished page. It's the act of making it.

This is where "permission to play" is an important concept. Art journaling actively welcomes ugly art, abstract marks, things that make no sense to anyone but you. Mixed media is a big part of it too: layering paint, paper, texture, found materials. It's closer to a painter's sketchbook than a photo album, with a lot more chaos thrown in.

Junk Journaling

Junk journaling is a more recent trend and it sits somewhere between the two. The idea is that you build journal pages from bits and pieces of stuff, things you've collected, saved, or that would otherwise have been thrown away. Junk mail, paper bags, packaging, ticket stubs. The result is dense, layered, maximalist pages full of texture and nostalgia.

It has a very tactile, analog feel, but that doesn't mean it can't be done digitally. You can layer brushes, photos, and textures in Procreate to get that same dense, handmade quality, with considerably less mess.

The Planner Family

Worth a quick mention: bullet journaling, Hobonichi planners, traveler's notebooks, and digital planning in GoodNotes all sit in a related space. They're visual journals too, but the emphasis tends to be on planning and organisation rather than pure creative expression. Still absolutely a valid and beautiful practice, just a different intention.

Why This Is All Relevant Right Now and Can It Be Digital?

There's a reason that analog, imperfect, maximalist artwork is having such a moment. It's partly a response to AI generated graphics, which can look overtly perfect and frictionless. People are pushing back against that by leaning into everything that feels tactile, personal, and human. Journaling is about as human as it gets.

Some people are going fully analog in response to that, and that's completely understandable. But I think there's still so much to gain from doing this digitally, and not just despite that, but because of it.

You don't need a house full of supplies. No chemicals, no cleanup, no glue on your fingers. You can do it anywhere, on a commute, in a waiting room, whenever you have ten minutes and your iPad.

✔ No cleanup or harmful chemicals

✔ Minimal space or supplies required

✔ You can take it with you anywhere

I've lost count of the number of people who've told me that digital art gave them a way back into creativity when nothing else could. That's why I'm so interested in exploring this digitally. Not as a replacement for the analog version, but as its own genuinely valuable thing that doesn't ask you to give anything up.

So What Do We Call It?

Honestly, the terminology is still evolving and I think that's fine. For my own work, digital art journaling feels like the right general term. It's broader than scrapbooking, it doesn't carry the specific aesthetic baggage that junk journaling does, and the word journaling keeps the focus on what matters most: that this is a personal practice, a form of self care, a way of expressing yourself for you.