If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you know I’m pretty committed to using a certain size of notebook… so much so that a notebook can be almost perfect, but if it’s a few millimeters away from my preferred size and proportions, it’s going to be a reject.

But it wasn’t always this way. I’ve been spoiled for the last 25 years or so, as Moleskine notebooks became my favorite size and the popularity of other similar brands made it easy to stick with. Before Moleskines came along, I mostly used other variations on pocket size notebooks, from tiny promotional diaries to 3×5″ spiral notebooks. The notebooks I use for work have always been larger, and a couple of years ago I added a personal size Filofax to my regular arsenal. But my collection also includes some very beloved non-work notebooks that were size medium and up, all of which I used on a regular basis for writing, sketching and journaling.

Below are some medium-sized notebooks that I used between high school and a couple of years post-college. They contained journal entries, a series of attempted comics, and some random notes and lists, as well as quite a few empty pages in a few of them. From left to right, brands are Maruman, Clipper, TeNeues, unknown, and Clairefontaine.

Then there are a couple of slightly larger ones. The red notebook with the tab closure is odd, I don’t even know what brand it is. And of course I used at least one classic composition book, like this one made by Pen-Tab.

The next few notebooks were more in the 8/12 x 11″ to 9×12″ size range. Several of these were used for college art classes– or attempted. A few of them have a lot of empty pages. The one with the space design says the brand (or artist) is Lynda Sandhaus, but the black one below it is unbranded.

This one, made by Strathmore, came with a blue dust jacket so the actual cover is still pretty pristine.

I used it as a sketchbook and notebook in college, and also saved some odd clippings in there.

I used quite a few of these basic Mead notebooks for writing workshops and journal entries. One has a price tag from the late and much lamented Airline Office Supply store in Manhattan. I haven’t had the need to buy one of these in many years, but I used to use tons of them for school.

Going a little larger still are these sketchbooks. The red Holbein sketchbook was a favorite. You can still buy these. And I can’t believe that big Utrecht sketchbook was only $3.25. I think I bought it in the early 1990s, but I still use it from time to time.

I probably have a couple other larger sketchbooks or watercolor books stashed away somewhere. Sketchbooks that I use exclusively for drawing or painting sort of seem like a different category, but all the ones I’ve shown you here live together in the same storage box, and most of them contain at least some writing and journaling and notes that make me think of them more as notebooks than as sketchbooks. Even for a person who loves pocket-size notebooks, there are times when bigger is better!

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