Clairefontaine, Doane Paper, Giveaway, Grandluxe, Hitlist, Rhodia, TeNeues, Whitelines

Questions from Readers

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Here’s a few questions that have come in lately– I need help from all you other notebook lovers!

From Zack:

I really like taking notes when learning. It helps me map out math in my head a lot better than just thinking about it. I’ve been looking for a good large-sized notebook to write in, maybe around A4 sized paper. Can you suggest some? Cost might be an issue, due to being a student.

There are certainly lots of good options for a notebook this size–Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Doane Paper’s large Idea Journal, Whitelines— but they might be a little pricey for a student budget. What’s your favorite lower-priced notebook?

From Park, a similar question:

Hi do you know of any notebooks that WILL NOT BLEED?  I am an excessive notetaker for school and it is extremely vexing when the paper I am using bleeds… Do you have any recommendations of standard sized notebooks that will not bleed? Thanks!

I’m guessing this means an A4 or 8.5×11″ size notebook since this is for school use. Again, Rhodia or Clairefontaine would be good bets, though a bit more expensive than what most students probably want to pay. If you can use something smaller and aren’t worried about price, I’m sure the Hitlist notebook I reviewed recently wouldn’t disappoint!

From Rowland:

I read something a while ago about a ‘notebook’ which opened out sort of Japanese fashion – but into an A3 size – I think they were made and distributed in Singapore.
Any ideas?

I can’t think of any Japanese (accordion fold-out) notebooks other than Moleskine’s, so I’m stumped… below are some more tough ones!

From Rick:

I use a leather-refillable journal for notes, etc, and I tear out used pages, so I am looking for one that has perforated pages to make a clean tear. Do you know of any that are like that?

From Paige:

Hello! I am a high school science teachers, and I want to recommend a notebook for my students for the upcoming year. I would ideally like something like a composition book (where pages aren’t easily removable) that has lined AND blank pages- maybe lined on the front, blank on the back. I will be teaching Astronomy and Earth science, and the notes will be heavy on drawings and sketches, so I want my students to not feel limited by the lines on the page.
Help!

TeNeues CoolNotes and Grandluxe Dialogue notebooks have pages that are lined on only one side, but I doubt these are easy enough to find or cheap enough for most high school students, and they’re smaller than a composition book.

 

Thanks to all my lovely readers for any help or advice you can provide!

Blueline, Giveaway, Levenger, Mead, Miquelrius, My Collection, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Year: Anene

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Here we have another super-addict whose love for notebooks extends to loving to shower them upon others! Anene is the author of a novel, Dancing with Gravity, and the blog Anene Writes. She offered to send me “a couple” of notebooks and look what showed up!

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 It’s an amazing variety, from a simple Mead composition book to some tiny handmade notebooks bound in Guatemalan(?) textiles. There’s a small notebook that comes with a mirror inside and a chain so you can wear it around your neck. There are Levenger Circa system disks and refills. There is an elephant dung paper journal. Some of my favorites were the journal with multi-colored leaf pages, and the Barnes & Noble/Miquelrius co-branded notebook. They’re every size and shape and color and texture! Obviously Anene is a devoted collector. She says “I share your addiction. And if I send you my duplicates…I’ll be able to go out, guilt-free and buy more!”

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I’ll be sharing some of Anene’s generosity with some lucky readers: since I’m starting to run out of room for all the wonderful gifts and samples people send me, I’m going to start doing more random giveaways, and the first one is today! The randomly selected winner will receive an assortment of up to 5 randomly selected notebooks, including some of these. If you like surprises, enter in any of these ways:

On Twitter, tweet something containing the words “random notebooks” and “@NotebookStories.”

On Facebook, “like” the  Notebook Stories page and post something containing the words “random notebooks” on my wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “random notebooks” and “NotebookStories” and link back to this post.

And for those who don’t use the above options, you can also enter by leaving a comment on this post about why you need more notebooks!

The deadline for entry is Friday August 12 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone! And thank you again to Anene for sharing her addiction and her notebooks with all of us!

 

My Collection, Notebook Reviews

Review: Federal Supply Service Notebooks

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A reader named Lisa kindly sent me these Federal Supply Service notebooks after seeing my post about them having been featured on A Continuous Lean. It was very cool to get my hands on these, as I myself am not a federal employee, and therefore can’t buy them (at least, theoretically. There are places online where you seem to be able to get around that).

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I’d love to know the full history behind these notebooks. They’ve obviously been the standard notebooks for military personal and other government workers for quite a while, though the design has evolved over time. I guess it makes sense for the military to have standard notebooks that fit in their uniform pockets, but what about other government workers? Are these the only notebooks that federal employees are authorized to purchase? Who actually has the contract to manufacture them? Are they made in the USA, despite their extremely low price?

As for the notebooks themselves, they have a nice, no-frills look to them. The green colors are quite nice. The quality of the construction seems solid, but it’s nothing fancy or fussy– don’t expect perfect edges and corners that line up 100% square. But that’s not the point: these aren’t meant to be design objects, they’re meant to be functional, and they’re meant not to cost taxpayers a fortune.

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The pocket size notebook is taller and narrower than the standard pocket Moleskine format. It’s extremely flexible and forgiving– you can roll it up and then roll it back the other way, and it will end up pretty flat again. The pages have a bright blue line, heavier than what you’d find in most lined notebooks. The paper feels very soft and thirsty, and soaks up ink quite readily. I love the logo on the front cover– they’ve changed these pocket notebooks from hardcover to paperback over the years, but they have kept that old-fashioned “Memoranda.” On the back, you have the product number.

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 The hardcover has sharp, square corners and the boards overhang the pages by quite a lot. On the back, there’s a barcode and the product number. The paper has the same soft feel to it, but the blue lines are much thinner than in the pocket notebook. If you’re a prolific journaler, these notebooks would be a good choice– they’re cheap and they’d look great all lined up on a shelf together. But you’d probably want to use a fine pen that would bleed through less.

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Thanks again to Lisa for giving me the opportunity to review these!

creativity, Moleskine, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

An Architect’s Office (and Notebooks)

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The photo below is from an Chicago Tribune photo essay about the office of Bill Baker, the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill structural engineer who helped design the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, currently the world’s tallest building.

He uses Moleskine notebooks and lead holders instead of pencils. There are more photos at the link, but barely any tantalizing little glimpses of the notebooks themselves. Very disappointing! But it’s still an interesting look at his workspace.

Diary, Filofax, Links, Organization, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping

Calendar Wars: Electronic Vs. Paper

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A fun article in this past weekend’s New York Times: Calendar Wars Pit Electronics Against Paper.

A few quotes from paper fans:

“I’ve got an iPad, an iPod, I’m on Twitter and Facebook and I’m talking on my BlackBerry now,” said Nelson George, a cultural critic, filmmaker and producer, in a phone interview. “But that’s enough. I’m an old-school paper calendar person.”

Mr. George uses a datebook that fits in his back pocket. “People make comments about it,” he said. “They show me their little technology. But then they sit there tapping on their device, and by the time they’ve gone through all the log-ins and downloading, I’ve already flipped the page.”

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Elizabeth Beier, executive editor at St. Martin’s Press, has kept the same agenda since the mid-’80s, when she bought it in London at the Filofax boutique. “I have the standard size with a cover that used to be green and a handsome little snap that has since rotted off,” she said. “I feel like it’s lived with me so long that it’s earned its decrepitude.”

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“There’s absolutely nothing anyone could say to get me to switch,” said Dany Levy, founder of Daily Candy and a faithful Filofax keeper since high school. “People are shocked. Here I am a dot.com entrepreneur, I should be on the bleeding edge of hip technology, yet I use a form of scheduling that dates to the dinosaurs.”

 

Dany Levy’s Filofax is below:

I have to say, I have my difficulties with paper when it comes to keeping a calendar. I have adoringly used many paper agendas over the years, including several years’ worth of Filofax calendars. But the arrival of the Palm Pilot coincided with my professional life revolving more and more around meetings and travel, and I found it much easier to keep track of with a handheld device that could sync with Outlook. Once I switched, I never really looked back. Now, I can easily have 15 or more meetings a week, plus personal appointments, birthdays and reminders. Having something beep on my computer or iPhone is often the only thing that saves me from forgetting to attend meetings, which are now almost always scheduled by electronic invitations. In some ways, I do miss being able to just flip through a date book, but that just wouldn’t be practical for me now. But I do keep a journal and daily log in my paper notebook, and I keep to-do lists both electronically and on paper– the split is more or less business tasks and long-term projects kept electronically, and personal, short-term tasks kept on paper.

This is probably the last Filofax calendar I ever used:

How about you? Are you all-paper? All-electronic? Some hybrid of the two?

Links, new products, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Week: Arnie

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Okami tipped me off to this week’s addict, who is a notebook maker himself. Arnie Kim is the man behind Banditapple Carnets. (See Okami’s glowing review.) Based on the photo below, he must have done a lot of research about the competition!

 

See original image at My notebooks collection on DailyBooth.

Here’s Okami’s photo of the Banditapple Carnets. I’m dying to try them! So far they’re only available in Korea but they’re looking for a US distributor.

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