Pouch Issue #3 Call for Submissions
Share one of your favorite journaling layouts or planner spreads with Pouch, and we may include it in the layout gallery for Issue #3!
Here is an example of how this looked in Pouch Issue #2:
We are considering Planner and Journal Layout submissions for these two categories:
- Good for a beginner: Send us your planner or journal layouts that you think might be good for beginners to try! These are layouts you might recommend to someone who is about to try out journaling or planning for the very first time, someone who has had a tough time using their journals or planners in the past, or anyone who is looking for journaling or planner ideas that are easy to follow yet still interesting to look back on after the year is over.
- Good for the experienced: Send us your planner or journal layouts that you think would interest experienced analog lovers! These are layouts you might recommend to someone who has used a planner or journal for years. Maybe you’ve got an intricate journal layout that takes more time commitment to do regularly, but the pay off is worth it. Maybe you have a fairly straightforward planner system, but it has “just worked” for you and you think a fellow planner nerd would appreciate hearing about it. Or maybe you have a weird & experimental layout that would inspire analog veterans to switch things up!
How to submit
Please read through our submission criteria first, then fill out this form to submit to Pouch Issue 3:
- ➡️ Pouch Issue 3 Call for Submissions form
- NOTE: You will have to be signed into a Google account, so it may prompt you to log into Google when you open the form. (This is because Google Forms requires sign-in for forms with file uploads!) Send an email to
victoriakirst@gmail.comif you're having trouble.
You may fill out the form multiple times if you’d like to submit multiple entries.
Submissions will close on February 9, 2026 11:59pm Pacific Time, and results will be emailed out around late March.
Compensation: If your submission is accepted for Pouch Issue 3, you will get a free digital and physical copy of the magazine!
Submission criteria
Send us layouts from your real planner or journal. Please use your real journal or planner and don't "stage" a layout just for Pouch -- we wanna see what your notebooks really look like! You're welcome to censor anything that might be sensitive, or let us know anything you'd like us to blur out and we can do it for you. Also, send in photos of your own notebooks, i.e. don't send in an Instagram post of someone else’s journal you really admire, as Pouch only publishes content we have permission to publish.
Physical journals and planners only. We love our digital organization tools, but the Pouch layout gallery is a celebration of paper! Your submission to the Pouch layout gallery should be a physical notebook.
Include helpful information for anyone who wants to replicate your layout or try out your journaling/planning system. Pouch readers love perusing the layout gallery for inspiration for their own journals and planners! Include information you think would be helpful to someone who might be trying to replicate a similar layout or system for themselves.
Include at least one photo of the entire spread in a lay-flat, top-down position. This helps us keep the layout gallery visually consistent and it helps readers understand your spread! You can include other photos taken at different angles or close-ups on details, but this isn’t required. You're also welcome to include your supplies in the photo, but it might get cropped to fit in the magazine.
Example:
Try to take high-quality, high-resolution photos. This isn’t strictly required because we know not everyone is a photographer and not everyone has access to a fancy camera!
Optional tips for taking a great photo for Pouch:
- Take your photo during the daytime with natural lighting — though try to avoid bright direct sunlight, as that can wash out the precious details on your pages.
- Try to avoid casting shadows on your layout if possible — these are hard to edit out and can make it difficult to see details on your pages.
- Generally speaking, a “real” camera will do a much better job taking photos of your journal or planner than the camera in your iPhone/Android phone. This is because phone cameras do a lot of automatic image processing on the photos you take, and sadly this effect is unflattering for paper subjects like journals and books. If you have access to a digital camera, try taking your photo with that instead of your cell phone!
Just try your best to send us the nicest-looking photo you can capture! 💖
You may submit multiple times. Feel free to send us multiple submissions to the same category or to multiple categories.
We’re prioritizing folks who haven’t been in Pouch before! If your work has appeared in a previous issue of Pouch, you’re welcome to submit again, but we’re going to prioritize contributors who haven’t been published yet.
No AI whatsoever. Please do not use AI in any part of your submission, not even for editing or proofreading. This means no AI-generated images or writing, but also no AI for “smaller” tasks like brainstorming, editing your writing, touching up photos, etc etc. We want your to hear your pure human voice, imperfections and all! 💖
How we select what goes in Pouch magazine
When we select which submissions will be published in an issue of Pouch, it’s like we’re arranging a lovely bouquet of flowers. And to take the metaphor a step further: it’s a flower bouquet, not a flower competition.
In other words, when reviewing submissions, Pouch is not trying to assess what are “the best” layouts we’ve received; we don’t believe in that premise. A glimpse into a person’s journal is a glimpse into their inner world — how could such a thing be ranked? Every single submission we get is beautiful, moving, and absolutely worthy of inclusion in Pouch.
Ah, but we have a magazine to publish! And a magazine requires curation in order to be coherent for its readers. For Pouch Issue 3, we probably can’t publish all submissions, so how will we select what gets published?
Of course, we will be following the submission criteria outlined above, but beyond that: It is a vague and imprecise science to find a set of layouts that we think work well together within the issue. We’ll put submissions next to each other, move them around, and see what emerges. The final selection will be just one arrangement of beautiful flowers, out of all the other equally beautiful permutations possible.
“Is my submission a planner or a journal layout?”
In our submission form, we ask you to categorize your submission as either a “planner” or a “journal” layout — but we know there’s a lot of ambiguity around the two terms!
For example, are the Hobonichi notebooks “planners” or “journals”? Many people use their Hobonichi as either a planner, or a journal, or both, or neither. Hobonichi themselves avoid either classification and call their notebooks “Life Books” for this reason!
That said, even though the notebooks might be used for any purpose, we think most layouts are created with a specific purpose in mind.
Here is how we’re defining “planner” vs “journal” for submissions this time around:
- Planner layout = This layout is primarily for managing your schedule and tasks, i.e. planning for the future.
- Examples: Managing your to-do list; keeping track of appointments; project planning; habit tracking; etc.
- Journal layout = This layout is primarily for memory-keeping, i.e. documenting the past.
- Examples: Daily journal; logging what books you’ve read; monthly photo dump; collecting ephemera; monthly calendar drawings; gratitude journaling; etc.
For Pouch Issue 3, we are currently accepting submissions for planners and journals based on these rough definitions above!
Q&A:
Q: My layout features some elements of planning and journaling: I have a to-do list at the top of the page (planning), then I write a journal entry on the rest of the page (journaling). Which category do I choose?
A: If your layout has aspects of both, please choose which one feels most represented in the layout. If it feels like a true hybrid, just choose “Journal” 😂
Q: My layout features planning / journaling, but it also has completely unrelated content in it, too. In my Hobonichi Weeks, I use the “week” side as my to-do list (planning), and the “memo” side as a scratchpad (neither planning nor journaling). Can I still submit it?
A: Yes! In this example, you’d submit this under “Planner layout.”
Q: How would I classify a logging-style layout (example) or a calendar doodle-a-day layout (example)?
A: We would classify these as “journaling” because they are documenting the past.
Q: My layout truly does not contain any aspects of journaling or planning it it, but I still feel like it should be considered for the layout gallery. Can I still submit it?
A: Indeed, there are really cool notebook spreads that aren’t really “planner” or “journal” layouts, such as morning pages, sketches, art collages, note-taking systems, etc! But for Issue 3’s Call for Submissions, we’re going to be prioritizing planner and journal layouts. If your layout doesn’t fit well in either category, it might not be a fit for our issue at this time! That said, if you really think you have an edge case that we should consider, please submit it under “Journal.”
Questions?
Send any questions to victoriakirst@gmail.com or DM me on Instagram @pouch.studio.
Thanks so much for contributing to Pouch!!