Notebook Stories

Pocket Dept is a relatively new brand of notebooks. Here’s the description from their website: Pocket Dept is a line of handy notebooks inspired by vintage stationary and designed to suit every pocket. Each Pocket Dept book is made from the finest writing papers and perfect bound for strength and durability. Designed and manufactured with [...]

A few months ago, I met Karen from Exaclair at her BookExpo booth and got a sneak peek at some new items from Rhodia and Clairefontaine. A few weeks later, some lovely samples showed up in my mailbox! Let’s take a look. First off, here’s the new large Webnotebook with dot-grid paper. I love dot-grid [...]

The Pentalic Illustrator’s Sketchbook is a nice little notebook I found at Lee’s Art Supply in New York several months ago. It’s very basic, and in some ways hard to distinguish from other Moleskine clones, but it does have a few interesting points of differentiation. The paper wrapper is a translucent vellum. The cover material is [...]

Here are our 5 winners for the sketchbooks. No one seems to have entered via linking back from a blog post, so I picked one winner from the comments, and two each from Twitter and Facebook: Comment #10 from Dan Twitter: @onymousol and @janelGr Facebook: Shaun Brooke and Diane Buck   Thank you everyone! Send [...]

There are so many different kinds of paper artists can use, and so many materials that demand different surfaces. When you’re in an art supply shop, there are multiple options for loose sheets and large spiral-bound sketchpads, but when it comes to smaller hardcover sketchbooks, each brand only seems to offer one option… why? You’d [...]

Curt Roper has lived out a fantasy many of us have: he designed his perfect fountain pen friendly notebook, and manufactured it so he could not only have a lifetime supply, but sell it to others too! Let’s take a look at the sample Hitlist notebook he sent me: I like the design– the cover [...]

I received this snazzy purple Leuchtturm notebook from Christian at notizbuchblog.de quite a while ago and can’t believe I’m only just now getting around to reviewing it. Leuchtturm appeals to many notebook users because of some neat features other brands don’t include: index pages at the front and pre-numbered pages. I sometimes hand-number my notebook [...]

One of the benefits of writing this blog is that I find out about interesting products I would otherwise never hear about. One such product is this Tom Bihn Field Journal Notebook, which the manufacturers sent me to review. It’s a neat little notebook and bag all in one! The bag is about the size [...]

The nice folks at Brandbook.de offered to send me some samples, and how could I resist? They do a wide variety of customized notebooks for various clients, but you can’t buy them in stores. Here’s a few of the recent projects they’re most proud of: The first one was made for the Art Directors Club [...]

Arwey is an interesting brand of notebooks you don’t see too often. The company is based in Turkey, but even on my trip to Istanbul, I only saw their notebooks sold in one store. I first discovered them at A.I. Friedman in New York, but they don’t seem to be carried there anymore. However, the [...]