Moleskine Monday: Analyzing Paper Weight

A reader named Steve commented on my “Dissecting a Moleskine” post with a link to a fascinating inquiry of his own: what is the actual weight of Moleskine paper? Steve points out that many notebook brands make a selling point of their paper weight, expressed in grams per square meter (GSM):

• Calepino, 90
• Clairefontaine, 90
• Fabriano, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100
• Mossery, 120
• Rhodia (Clairefontaine paper), 80, 90

But Moleskine never specifies paper weight. So Steve did some measuring and calculation– seriously in-depth measuring and calculation! You can read all about his methods and results, including nifty graphs like this:


You may not understand it all. I sure didn’t! But it’s pretty cool nonetheless. The bottom line is that he accounts for a lot of variables that could throw things off and still concludes the paper in a regular Moleskine (not the heavier sketchbooks, storyboard notebooks or Japanese albums) is 71 GSM. No wonder they don’t brag about it!

Read more at Weighing in on Moleskine Paper.

3 thoughts on “Moleskine Monday: Analyzing Paper Weight”

  1. Well, it depends. I prefer paper of lesser weight. When one has to road a bag full of notebooks from here to there walking or by bus, the weight is a very essential thing.

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