Brandbook, Giveaway, My Collection, new products, Notebook Reviews, Nuuna, Places to Buy Notebooks

Review & Giveaway: Nuuna Notebooks

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Nuuna is a new brand of notebooks made in Germany by Brandbook. (I’ve reviewed some of Brandbook’s products designed for custom promotional uses, but this is their entry into products for the retail market.) The kind folks at Notebook Maniac (who have a great selection of other notebooks too) sent me a couple of samples to check out.

These notebooks make a great first impression. I love the design and colors. The notebook I tested has an off-white cloth cover with contrasting orange details, and fairly subtle branding. The notebook seems very tight and compact, and at about 3 1/2 x 5 1/4″ is slightly smaller than most comparable pocket size notebooks (shown below next to a pocket Moleskine). The corners are square, but cover overhang is kept pretty minimal. Some other points of differentiation: the ribbon bookmark is quite long, and the branding info on a cardboard strip under the shrinkwrap doubles as a bookmark. The accordion pocket in the back isn’t as deep as on most notebooks, which makes it easier to see what’s inside (but also perhaps easier for it to fall out). The binding opens nice and flat. My only complaint about the construction of the notebook is that the elastic is quite tight– if you just tuck it around the back cover, it is tight enough to start to bow the cover.

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Inside, the paper is very smooth and fine, a pleasure to write on with fine tip gel ink pens. The notebook I tested had dot grid paper, with small dots not going all the way to the edges of the page. Show-through was about average, in line with the paper weight, and bleed-through was also about the same as I’ve experienced with other papers of this weight, with only the Accu-liner and Super Sharpie really soaking through.

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Other colors and sizes are available, as well as other cover materials, such as on this black version with yellow-edged blank pages:

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All in all, I think Nuuna is an exciting addition to the notebook landscape– very pocketable, cool-looking, and nice to write in. The price is pretty steep though– $20 for the small linen notebook, and $18 for the black covered one. I guess that is the price you pay for a quality notebook made in Germany, not China. (Notebook Maniac does offer free shipping on orders over $40 within the continental US.)

And if you want one for free, you can enter my giveaway! I will send the black notebook to  a lucky winner selected from entries received in the following ways:
On Twitter, tweet something containing “Nuuna”, “@notebookmaniac” and “@NotebookStories, and follow “@notebookmaniac” and “@NotebookStories.”

On Facebook, “like” the  Notebook Stories page  and the Notebook Maniac page, and post something containing the words “Nuuna notebook from Notebook Maniac” on the Notebook Stories wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Nuuna notebook from Notebook Maniac” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this blog.

The deadline for entry is August 16 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner.

Calepino, Clairefontaine, Fabriano, Fun & Weird, Other People's Notebooks, Rhodia, Scientific

Moleskine Monday: Analyzing Paper Weight

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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.

Daycraft, Moleskine, Notebook Addict of the Week

Notebook Addict of the Week: Emma

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Emma emailed me some photos of her collection, with these comments:

My notebook collection isn’t quite as big as a lot of your other readers’ collections, but it’s on its way!
I have: three plain Moleskine cahiers, spanning the last month of high school and my first year of college; two plain Moleskine softcovers, spanning the other three years of undergraduate studies; three linen-covered Paperchase notebooks (rose, navy, sage), the first two spanning my past gap year, the last will cover my summer before graduate studies; three “Paper Rehabilitation Project” plain notebooks (two white, one black – see link below for details); two plain Daycraft notebooks (red and lime), two handmade recycled notebooks from Petit Paperie on Etsy (rose and pink), and a large plain journal from my friend, covered by hand in olive-colored floral silk.
These are the “canonical” notebooks; I have various unfinished “kiddie” notebooks from my youth stashed under my bed, as well.
Out of the “canonical” notebooks, the “Paper Rehabilitation Project” ones are the most interesting. They’re made in Detroit by a group of artists who salvaged the paper inside from  excess, rejected, and/or damaged paper found in a recycling plant. When I spotted them at a little shop in Detroit, I felt like Chatwin grabbing those last “vrai Moleskines” – but my boyfriend somehow convinced me to only buy one. He later bought me two more for Christmas.
More information about the International Typographic Union’s (awesome) notebook project here: http://www.internationaltypographicalunion.org/work/PRP.html

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Nice collection! There’s a very interesting size consistency here, despite the variety of colors and brands. And it’s great to hear about all that nice paper being turned into notebooks! Thanks for sharing your addiction, Emma!

Art, creativity, Diary, Links, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Dieter Roth 1967 Diary

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I love this messy, scribbly, intensely red diary page:

This notebook was exhibited as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Art Festival.

“Apart from the video installation, the Roth exhibition at Fruitmarket Gallery is full of books. Notebooks with their pages opened reveal bursts of red ink or spill forth with every idea and fantasy that ever filled the artist’s head. Here, Roth’s original diaries rightly become works of art.”

Read more at Dieter Roth, Notebook, 1967 (detail) | Wodu Media.

antique, Diary, Journal, Links, Nostalgia, Other People's Notebooks, Places to Buy Notebooks

1880s Memorandum Book

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Here’s a drool-worthy item that some collector has probably already snapped up:

 

From the description:

“The writing in the book includes “This Old Pocket Book & Pencil was given to me by my Father about the year 1882 and in the following pages I have recorded some of the events of my Life, places visited and experiences.” The next page records “Apprenticed to John Chambers July 1886. Finished apprenticeship July 1890. March-8-91 Left the farm of John Chambers, Grantham. Wed March 18 Left Grantham 12.30 Arr. Kings X 2.40 To 76 George St. Evening to Wardour Hall, Cleveland Hall” [Methodist. Cleveland Hall was was dedicated to helping young women who were in poverty.] . Monday March 23 1891 Entered Mr Whiteley’s Employ.” There follow many brief, often daily entries through 1891 and ending on April 30th 1892, giving glimpses of the work and leisure of a working woman in Victorian London. The book is a combination of a scarce example of this type of notebook, with original stilus, together with a unique personal record.”

See more at IMPROVED PATENT IVORY SURFACE METALLIC MEMORANDUM BOOK [with writing stilus ]: T J & J Smith London no date – Peter M. Huyton.

Diary, Journal, Links, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping

Notebook Addict of the Week: Robert Priddy

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I forget how I came across the intriguing web page where this week’s addict posted photos of some of his notebooks. It’s all part of a campaign to expose the alleged misdeeds of a guru at an ashram in India, which is interesting, but of course it was the variety of nice old notebooks that fascinated me!

ON THE RECORDS I HAVE KEPT OF MY VISITS TO SATHYA SAI BABA ASHRAMS

These notebooks are very extensive and, with very few exceptions, there is an entry for every day of all my nine India visits. Naturally, scans of all of these many hundreds of pages cannot be posted here, so I have chosen to present those pages and excerpts from pages which have a direct bearing on research – and particularly for the exposure of the various deceptions and cover-ups I came to discover. During the time I wrote these notebooks I remained a believer in Sai Baba, and recorded all in the spirit of trying to obtain facts to help exclude my own doubts (and those of others too). Only after 1999 did I begin to realise that I had been deceived by Sai Baba on most fundamental matters. The scanned pages are often rather difficult to read when in ink, also due to ‘bleed through’ from the reverse side of a page.

Read more at MY NOTEBOOKS COVERING NINE VISITS TO PRASHANTHI NILAYAM (from 1984/5 to 1998)

Art, creativity, Giveaway, new products, Sketchbook, Stillman & Birn

Big Stillman & Birn Giveaway!

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Oops, I forgot to do a giveaway with the review of the Stillman & Birn Zeta series sketchbook.  The company has generously offered 5 prizes– a choice of either a 5.5 x 8.5 hardbound or 6 x 8 wirebound (spiral) sketchbook for each winner.

I will select the 5 lucky winners from entries received in the following ways:
On Twitter, tweet something containing “@stillmanandbirn” and “@NotebookStories, and follow “@stillmanandbirn” and “@NotebookStories.”

On Facebook, “like” the  Notebook Stories page  and the Stillman & Birn page, and post something containing the words “Stillman & Birn” on the Notebook Stories wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Stillman & Birn” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this blog.

On this post, comment about how much you want a Stillman & Birn sketchbook and what you’ll fill it with!

The deadline for entry is August  2 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner.

 

Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…