Photographer Nigel Shafran‘s “Work Books” were exhibited in 2018 as the first show at a new London gallery, Sion and Moore. Here’s a few photos from a Wallpaper article about the show:
Rather than present the photographs he is celebrated for, the work books – part sketchbook, part diary – give a deeper, more intimate view to the artist’s practice. The arrangement of his observations and notes, with labels and annotations, is one recurrent feature.
A good friend of mine has become a big fountain pen fan, and told me she’s been using the Exceed notebook from Walmart. She said it was a fountain pen friendly notebook at a bargain price, so of course I was intrigued! She was kind enough to send me two of them as a gift, so let’s take a look.
The Exceed notebook is a very standard Moleskine clone. A wrap-around paper band has product and brand info, and the logo is stamped on the back cover. It has the black faux-leather cover, an elastic closure, back pocket and as a nice bonus, two ribbon markers instead of one. It has a somewhat chunkier feel than a Moleskine, with slightly thicker cover boards but similar cover overhang. There’s a fine line between “chunky” and “clunky,” but to me, the Exceed notebook stays on the right side of it!
The pocket notebook has 192 pages/96 sheets, same as a Moleskine. The construction seems very good quality, with tidy corners and everything square and symmetrical around the edges. The ribbon markers seem not to be sealed off at the ends, so they are a bit ragged, but I always dab nail polish on the ends of my ribbons as even when they have been sealed, as they always seem to fray over time. The elastic closure is the perfect length to wrap around the back cover snugly when it’s not being used to hold the notebook closed.
The spine is a bit tight, and its lining is stiff, so the notebook can’t be opened quite as flat as some of the competition, though I think it is comparable to a current production Moleskine. (I prefer the older Moleskines and Bindewerklinen notebooks where the cover is flexible enough at the spine that you can fold it inwards when the notebook is open, allowing the pages to open more flat.)
Inside the front cover, there is a place to write your contact details and a large Exceed logo. The paper is a creamy off-white, slightly more yellowish than Moleskine’s. The dots have the same spacing, and look slightly darker or bolder than Moleskine’s. In the pocket notebook, the paper weight is 78 GSM, but in the medium, it is 100 GSM.
My friend was right: the Exceed notebook paper is great, with a smooth, substantial feel. Fountain pens don’t feather or bleed and inks shade nicely. The creamy color of the paper means that some colors look a little less vibrant than on bright white paper like Clairefontaine’s, but not by much. Drying times can be a bit long, but all in all, I think fountain pen users will be very happy with this paper. Other pens also work well, with only the usual wet markers bleeding through. Show-through is about average. The 100 GSM paper in the medium notebook feels noticeably thicker– pens perform even better here, with less bleed from the markers and less show-through in general.
Pocket size notebook with 78 GSM paperPocket size 78 GSM paper back of pageMedium size 100 GSM paperMedium size 100 GSM paper back of page
The Exceed notebook comes in the 3.5 x 5.5″ pocket size and 5 x 8.25″ medium size shown above, as well as a 7 x 9.75″ large size. Various colored covers are available, with lined or dot grid pages, as well as what appear to be softcovers. (On Walmart’s website, there are versions with slightly different packaging, which do not seem to specify the paper weight. I don’t know if these are newer versions that might have different paper, so buyer beware!)
On the whole, I think the Exceed notebook from Walmart is a great value. The paper is very fountain pen friendly, and the quality of the build is much better than I’d expect for something of this price. The pocket notebook is normally $4.64, but as of this writing I’m seeing it at a $3.00 clearance price for in-store purchase only. Grab some while you can! The medium is $9.64 and available for purchase online. Exceed notebooks are made in China and sold by a company called Norcom, which is based in the USA. As far as I can tell, Walmart is the main seller for the notebooks I’ve reviewed, although there are some listings for other Exceed/Norcom products on Amazon and other retailers.
I almost always compare notebooks to Moleskine in my reviews, because they are widely available and easy to use as a basic standard. But vs. the Exceed notebook, Moleskine is just a much worse notebook for a much higher price. A closer comparison is the Taotree notebook I reviewed in December 2019. The Taotree notebook has 120 GSM paper in a brighter white color, with less show-through and shorter drying time but a little bit of feathering with some pens. It only has one ribbon marker but it adds a pen loop. It is very similar in construction and quality. The Taotree is currently available on Amazon for $8.99 for a 2-pack of pocket size notebooks, so it is also a great value. Unfortunately it is only available in lined right now, rather than the dot grid version I was able to buy last year, but if you can’t find the Exceed notebooks at your local Walmart, Taotree is also well worth a try.
[The samples reviewed in this post were received as a gift from a friend who has no connection to Walmart, Exceed or Norcom. All opinions are my own.]
Imagine buying a vintage Hermès address book on eBay and then realizing it belonged to Dora Maar, the artist and poet who is best known for having been Picasso’s mistress and muse! Brigitte Benkemoun, the author of Finding Dora Maar, describes her process of deducing the address book’s origins:
A-B: The first entry is illegible because it is partly blotted out with black ink. The second might be ANDRADE, then AYALA. On the fourth line is the first familiar name: ARAGON! Followed by a few contacts that call up nothing for me: ACHILLE de MÉNERBES, BERNIER, BAGLUM . . . Then a few entries for whom he or she listed an address as well, perhaps because they were closer friends: BRETON, 44, rue Fontaine; BRASSAÃ, 81, rue Saint-Jacques; BALTHUS, château de Chassy, Blismes, Nièvre.
For the letter C, COCTEAU is the first entry: 36, rue de Montpensier, RIC 5572, or 28 in Milly. But are the first entries always the closest friends? And this poet was such a figure on the Paris social scene that everyone must have known his number. Followed by the painters COUTAUD, 26, rue des Plantes; CHAGALL, 22, place Dauphine . . .
After going through the address book, recognizing many famous names and deciphering other details, she realizes that there’s only one person who could have owned it:
Of course, it must be her! Everything fit, it all matched, up to Picasso’s absence at the letter P. In 1951, six years after their breakup, she did not copy his address or his phone number into her new address book, not being able to erase him in any other way. Maybe this wasn’t “a Picasso.†But it was the address book of Dora Maar that I held in my hand!
Such a cool story, and such a gorgeous little address book!
A recent piece on the Elle magazine website compiles the thoughts of 4 women on how keeping a diary has affected their lives and their writing. Unfortunately there were no photos of any of their diaries, but below are a few excerpts from the article:
Now I record everything, from dialogue I overhear to things I feel and interesting characters I meet. It’s not a daily habit, but if I’m going through something emotional, I’ll always write it out. Importantly, I’ve realised my notebooks help me understand the seasons of my life. I have a huge fear of death, and I work through that by expressing and reflecting on the passage of time. I think that’s why I’m so nostalgic.
I met the first boy I ever fancied when I was 12 on a family holiday in France; his name was Xavier. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the same, so I went to the local supermarket and bought a brown chunky book that French kids used for their school agendas. I started writing about my unrequited love, beginning each entry with ‘Dear Xav…’ and on the first page, I made a vow to write in my diary every day. I’ve kept my word ever since.
I have a fireproof safe filled with 80 journals. I care less about remembering things; it’s more for mental-health reasons, like keeping myself in check and telling myself I’m OK. Every time I freak out, I’m able to journal myself to a place of sanity. It’s a superpower. It started at school when I read Harriet the Spy and would write about my classmates and teachers in a notebook.
The poet Dylan Thomas held on to some of his school notebooks from his youth, and mined their contents for his adult work. For many years, only 4 notebooks were known of, but in 2014 a fifth came to light. John Goodby, the professor who edited it for publication, tells its story in an article at The Conversation.
From April 1930, aged 15, Thomas began copying his completed poems into a series of school exercise books….
In a letter of 1933, Thomas referred to an “innumerable†number of such notebooks. And, unlike most poets, he hung onto his juvenilia, carrying them around with him and raiding them for material until 1941. At that point, in the darkest days of the second world war, hard up and with a family to support, he sold the first four, which run from April 1930 to April 1934, to the library of the State University of New York at Buffalo…..
The fifth notebook’s extraordinary nature as an object is matched by the story of its survival. Two notes contained in the Tesco’s bag in which the notebook was found allowed us to establish this. The first, a brief description by Thomas himself, shows that the last time he was in possession of it was early 1938.
After marrying in summer 1937, [Dylan Thomas] and Caitlin Macnamara lived with Caitlin’s mother at her home in Hampshire until early 1938. The second note – by Mrs Macnamara’s maid, Louie King – revealed that after Dylan and Caitlin’s departure she was given the notebook, with other “scrap paper†they left behind, to burn in the kitchen boiler. King, however, withheld the notebook from its fiery fate – out of curiosity, sentiment, or for some other reason we know nothing about. When she died in 1984 the notebook passed to her family, who kept it, still a secret to the outside world, until 2014.
Sometimes people find their way to my website by searching for a bygone notebook brand that has left few other traces online. Often they are looking to replace a long discontinued notebook, and I’m sorry not to be able to help. But sometimes I actually can provide answers!
I recently received a message from someone who found this site while looking for information on Marquette diaries. This reader inherited a 1953 Marquette diary that his great-grandfather used while working on nuclear submarines in New York state. He shared these wonderful photos:
This is such a wonderful piece of family history to have preserved, giving a glimpse of the great-grandfather’s daily life and his feelings about working and living apart from his family during that time.
The reader contacted me hoping to find a similar diary in which he could start his own journaling habit to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps. Fortunately, this was not too hard. The cover and format of the 1953 Marquette diary immediately reminded me of a type that is available today: At-A-Glance‘s (Weekly Appointment Book).
The layout is so similar to the 1953 Marquette diary, with the morning hours on the left, afternoon hours on the right, and “evening” at the bottom of each day. All that is missing in today’s version is the space for weather notes at the top of the page. Other than that, it is basically the same but with updated typefaces. I don’t know if brands other than Marquette used this particular page format. It may not have been unique enough for anyone to copyright. I suppose it’s possible that Marquette was bought by some corporate ancestor of At-A-Glace (which is now part of ACCO, a multi-national conglomerate also including brands such as Mead, DayRunner, Hilroy and others) but I can’t find any company histories online that back that up. (I was hoping that my copy of the book The Accidental Diarist: A History of the Daily Planner in America would have some images of similar planners, but it mostly focuses on the pre-20th century origins of keeping daily planners and diaries.)
The happy ending to this notebook story is that my correspondent has already ordered a 2021 At-A-Glance diary to begin his journaling habit. But let me know in the comments if you know of other defunct brands of diaries that were similar, or comparable planners available today.
If you are fortunate enough to be anywhere near Leeds, you are lucky! An exhibition of Henry Moore’s notebooks and sketchbooks is opening this week:
The Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Arts University are marking 100 years since Yorkshire’s own Henry Moore started studying sculpture, the first step on his journey to becoming a world renowned artist.
The anniversary coincides with the unveiling of a set of the artist’s notebooks that will be shown in public for the first time at the Henry Moore Institute from Tuesday 13 October 2020.
Henry Moore (1898-1986) is widely recognised as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, known for his semi-abstract monumental bronzes, which can be seen all over the world.
Following World War One the artist received an ex-serviceman’s grant which enabled him to enrol at Leeds School of Art (now Leeds Arts University). In September 1920, he started a year-long sculpture course at Leeds School of Art where a sculpture department was set up with Moore as the sole student. The art school appointed a new sculpture teacher Raymond Cotterill, primarily to teach Moore.
The results of this one-to-one tuition can be seen in his notebooks at the Henry Moore Institute, which have been uncovered for this landmark anniversary. Full of sketches of classical sculpture and architecture, along with handwritten notes from his lectures, these notebooks give a unique insight into his formative training and reveal details of the course which focused on the history of sculpture and gave him formal classical knowledge.
If you aren’t in the vicinity, you can see some of Henry Moore’s notebooks and sketchbooks on the website of the Henry Moore Foundation. Unfortunately the site doesn’t offer a full flip-through, but you can see the exteriors of various notebooks as well as assorted images on sheets that seem to have been removed from sketchbooks. But I’m glad I discovered this, as Moore is one of my favorite artists, and I don’t expect to be able to travel to the UK anytime soon! The exhibition ends on Dec. 18, 2020.
The Pilot B7 Binder notebook is another Japanese “system organizer” type looseleaf that I ordered at the same time as my Raymay Davinci notebook. I love this format of slim pocket sized binder!
The Pilot B7 Binder is a pocket sized looseleaf notebook. It comes packaged in a clear plastic slipcover that allows you to open it and see what’s inside. The label notes that this is a “6 Ring Slim Binder, Just Refill Size.”
“Just Refill Size” seems to mean literally that– the binder is just as large as the refill pages, unlike many other 6-ring looseleaf notebooks, such as most pocket size Filofaxes, where the binder is wider than the refill paper in order to accommodate divider tabs that stick out beyond the page edges. But it isn’t “just refill size” in the vertical direction, where the cover overhangs quite a bit more. This allows you to use divider tabs that stick out at top or bottom.
This Pilot notebook is slightly larger than its cousin the Davinci notebook. Both have 8mm rings, which allow the notebooks to be very slim and small. In the photos below, the Pilot notebook is compared to the Davinci and a pocket Moleskine.
The Pilot binder is not real leather like the Davinci. It is made of a burgundy or maroon colored fake leather. This color and vinyl material has kind of a retro feel to me– it reminds me a bit of the cheap notepad covers that are often given away as promotional items. But it doesn’t feel quite as plastic-y as those. It actually has a sturdy feel, with real stitching all around the edges. It may not be as luxurious as the Davinci, but it is nicely made and doesn’t feel cheap. What I don’t know is how this material will age over time– I would guess it will soften somewhat with use, but could also crack at stress points, as it won’t have the ability to flex and stretch like real leather. My only quibble with the construction is that the cover seems to be just slightly off square, somehow, or perhaps the ring mechanism is slightly askew. I’ve had this issue with other notebooks of this type– sometimes the ring base can be shifted slightly in the clip that holds it to the spine, but in the Pilot binder it doesn’t move enough to make a difference. It’s not too bothersome, though.
Inside the front cover, there is a full-length pocket and a smaller slit where you could slip a business card or two. The back inside cover has another full length pocket and a pen loop. My favorite thing about this pen loop is that it is adjustable and can be tucked away inside the back cover. It still makes a bit of a lump but it doesn’t get in the way as much as the pen loop on the Davinci, which was so annoying I had to cut it off!
The included refill paper is lined and has a lovely smooth feel. I expected it to be fountain pen friendly, as so much Japanese paper is. But alas, it is actually really crappy and I could immediately see that my fountain pens were bleeding like crazy. I didn’t even bother to do a full set of pen tests– it’s not like this refill paper is easily found in the US anyway, and the whole point of a looseleaf binder is that you can fill it with whatever you want! The included paper is actually slightly wider than standard 3 x 5″ refills. If you fill the notebook with normal 3 x 5″ paper, it doesn’t go all the way to the edges of the binder, so you could add some low-profile tabs if you wanted to.
The Pilot B7 Binder leaves me with another dilemma. I have so many looseleaf notebooks that I adore, yet I find myself lacking for ways to use them! This one feels so solid and durable, I’d love to find some daily use for it. I originally discovered this size of Japanese notebook, commonly referred to as a system organizer, via Russell Stutler, who uses them for sketching. I love the way he keeps a watercolor palette and sketch paper inside his binder, but I find this page size just a wee bit small for drawing and painting, even though I am usually using a 3.5 x 5.5″ pocket Moleskine sketchbook or similar. That extra half inch in each direction, and the absence of ring holes, gives you a lot more space. So we’ll see…
Bottom line, this is a great little notebook. It is a cut above the usual generic pocket looseleaf notebooks sold in the US, and the small rings give it a very pocketable profile. It lacks the real leather luxury of a Filofax or the Davinci binder, but it’s also a lot cheaper, or at least it was when I bought it several months ago. I paid $14.75, with free shipping, via a 3rd party seller on Amazon. Right now, prices are around $18-$45 including shipping. But the Davinci binder is now around $70 including shipping (I paid about $43 with free shipping). I don’t think this can be completely explained by fluctuations in the Yen to USD exchange rate, so maybe the COVID-19 pandemic is a factor.
Here are the listings on Amazon for the B7 slim size binders. Other sizes are also available.
Burgundy color shown here (currently $41.61 with free shipping)
The folks at Rollo London have continued to expand their product line, and recently introduced the Otto collection of notebooks. Let’s take a look at the sample Otto notebook they sent me:
This is another pretty standard A5 format notebook. Like Rollo’s Hardy notebook I previously reviewed, the Otto notebook has a hard cover, ribbon marker, back pocket and elastic closure. Inside you get a “reference” aka index page at the beginning, and then lined pages with a space in the header where you can put the date. The pages don’t have the little dog logo that is at the bottom on the Hardy notebook pages. All of the pages are perforated for easy removal. (See the Hardy review for some additional photos of things that are basically the same between the two notebooks.)
But the Otto differs from the Hardy in a few ways. Instead of the leather-look textured cover of the Hardy, the Otto has a more basic smooth cover, with a printed pattern. From afar, the pattern sort of looks like a pebbly leather grain, or water drops, or perhaps just an abstract pattern. The sample I received is light grey, which I think accentuates the water drop look. Other colors are available, and while I haven’t seen them in person, the online images suggest that darker shades might play up the leather illusion.
The Otto has plain page edges, vs. the gilded edges on the Hardy. There is no metallic charm on the cover (which is fine with me), but instead a metallic stamped Rollo London logo on the front, and just “Rollo” in smaller print on the back. I liked the upscale look of the Hardy notebook, but the Otto is attractive in its own way. It doesn’t make as much of a style statement, but for many people, less is more when it comes to “bling” on notebook covers, so I’m sure both designs will have their fans. If you prefer a minimal notebook, you’ll be happy to hear that there are options where you can dial down the bling even more: the Otto is also available with a plain, logo-less front cover in certain colors.
When I reviewed the Hardy notebook, I found its 70 gsm paper to be disappointing when used with some fountain pens. The Otto has 80 gsm paper, and it performed somewhat better in my pen tests. It still isn’t top-notch but there’s less bleed-through and feathering than with the Hardy I tested, and some of my finer nibs worked perfectly well. Depending on your preferred nib/ink combos, the Otto may work for you, and the Hardy now uses this upgraded paper as well.
And the last key point is that the Otto is cheaper than the Hardy! While the Hardy is £22, the Otto is only £19. And as of this writing the Otto is even marked down to £12 while stock lasts. The Otto is made in the UK and is said to be environmentally responsible, so that price seems fair for a notebook with these specs.
The bottom line here is that the Otto is a well-made notebook at a decent price. Rollo’s Hardy notebooks distinguish themselves a bit more in the marketplace with their high design specs relative to their price. I can’t say the Otto is super exciting in any particular way vs. all the competition, but if the design and features suit your personal preferences and pen usage habits, it is worth a try. You can purchase them directly from Rollo London’s website and at various UK retailers.
[I received a free sample notebook but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All opinions are my own.]
I came across what looks like a very interesting collection of notebooks:
Much like the celebrated journals from Lewis and Clark’s Expedition in early 19th century America, geologists with the Department of Natural Resources’ Missouri Geological Survey have been keeping journals since the mid-1800s. Thanks to a cooperative effort with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program and the department, these journals known as “Geologist’s field notebooks†are being preserved and will be made available online as PDFs.
These fascinating notebooks are indispensable tools for geologists and they serve as guidebooks to the future as well as the past. They contain drawings, maps, and information and observations about Missouri’s geologic and hydrologic wonders, including important mineral and energy resources. Some contain carefully pressed leaves from trees, very old paper clips, advertisements, business cards and newspaper clips that shed light on aspects of Missouri geology and everyday life at the time. Geologists continue to use field notebooks to record information about geologic and hydrologic features while doing research in the great outdoors.
The archive is not the easiest to navigate, and you have to download big files to actually see any images, but there seem to be hundreds of notebooks fully scanned. So far, my favorites are the oldest notebooks from the 1800s, such as the one below. Beautiful handwriting!
