Melinda at School Supply Dance has posted our latest Carnival: School Supply Dance: The Seventh Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper.
This month, we’ve got reviews of Leuchtturm and Ecosystem notebooks, as well as some fountain pens, rollerball pens, and colored pencils!
The March carnival will be hosted by PocketBlonde on March 9th. If you’re interested in hosting a future edition, please let me know! More information about the carnival here.
I’m sure many of us notebook freaks have often imagined creating the perfect notebook– something that would take elements of notebooks you like and combine them, or somehow correct flaws, or else customize a notebook that is perfect for your exact needs.
Here’s an interesting series of posts from a designer who did just that, envisioning the perfect sketchbook and even creating a prototype and branding for marketing it. Here are his criteria:
1. A sketchbook that highlights the work and not itself
2. Well constructed and affordable
3. No spines getting in the way of cross page sketching
4. Just the right size but with enough space or room to play with
5. “Boundary-less†pages
6. Flexible enough to do what you will
7. Decent quality paper that takes all non-wet mediums like ink, pencil or markers.
8. Appeals to everyone, not just designers
Spaces for Ideas: The Beginning
Spaces for Ideas: The First Prototype
Spaces for Ideas: The Brand
It’s an interesting experiment, but what he may end up needing is “Spaces for Ideas: The Desk,” as the sketchbook would require a surface with a hole in it to allow a full sheet to lie flat!
“I’m a writer, and I don’t carry a notebook around with me. Heck, I don’t even carry a pen. Do people even use those anymore? Pens. So old school.“
SACRILEGE!!!
Read more at A Writer’s Greatest Tool: the Smartphone | Write to Done.
These look pretty cool, but unfortunately you probably can’t buy one! They seem to have sold out, but hopefully they’ll be back, as they seem to make new batches every so often.
For those who cringe at the thought of cool old records being re-purposed this way, here’s a note from the makers at Vinyl Collective, “a community for vinyl collectors” where you can buy vinyl records and other accessories:
We only make notebooks from Warped vinyl that was returned to us. We don’t like the idea of taking a perfectly good record and turn it into a notebook.
I think making notebooks is a great way to recycle things!
Find out more at Vinyl Collective.
I’m glad this is big news for the Wesleyan Student Assembly: Firke Christens New Notebook:
On Wednesday evening at approximately 9:07 p.m. (EST), Ben Firke ‘12 was sighted writing in a brand new black-and-white patterned notebook. This new notebook is surely only the first of many more to come, as Firke is known for his tendency to maniacally scribble down everything that happens in his life. Whether he is taking notes during the WSA general assembly meeting, rehearsing what he is going to say to someone, or drawing the dinosaurs that persistently hijack his imagination, you can always be sure of one thing–his trusty notebook will be involved, and there will definitely be chicken-scratch.
Says Firke: “Using notebooks is what I live for.”
Hey, why not? :)
Here’s a notebook that I’ve never seen in any stores, but spotted on a couple of websites, including Amazon and WB Mason. The online images made the Tops Designer Notebook look like a typical Moleskine-type notebook but in nice colors like blue and red, and the price was quite low. But how does it really compare when you see it up close? Let’s take a look!
Here’s the front and back cover. The removable paper band is made of a translucent vellum paper.
The back view provides the first departure from the standard Moleskine set of features– the elastic band attaches in the middle of the notebook instead of at the top and bottom
As you can see from the next photo, there is quite a large overhang of the cover beyond the paper.
The outside dimensions of the notebook are about the same as a Moleskine, but the pages inside are much smaller.
When you open the notebook, that elastic starts to seem really weird– the way it’s attached leaves it hanging quite loose.
At first I thought it might have been made that way so you’d have the option of wrapping it around sideways like a Ciak or Piccadilly Primo journal, but it’s too loose to work that way.
Here’s a closeup of the cover material– it’s hard to see, but it has an unusual texture, not the usual vaguely leather-ish feel. The closest thing I can compare it to would be the surface of a cinder block, or a stucco wall!
The inside front cover is blank:
But when you turn to the first page, there’s the space for writing your info, on the inside of the endpaper. The binding is a bit tight and the notebook doesn’t open flat very easily.
There’s no pocket in the back, just a logo.
So how about the paper? I’m sorry to say that it’s quite disappointing. It’s quite thin and showed some of the worst bleed-through I’ve seen in any notebook I’ve reviewed:
I have to say that I found this notebook very disappointing overall. The weird elastic and small, skimpy pages just bothered me. The price for these notebooks on Amazon is currently $5.49 (or $8-12 for a larger size), though I think it was about a dollar less when I bought mine. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re even worth that much– Piccadilly’s notebooks cost less at Borders and are far superior in quality. The only upside to these might be the color and texture of the cover, but that’s a matter of taste.
Specs:
96 lined pages
132 x 85mm
Made in Malaysia
This week’s addict is Catherine Sharp, a writer living in Northern Ireland. She got several comments on this article from people confessing that they shared her (our) addiction! I have to say, this may be the first time I’ve posted an addict photo where I couldn’t positively identify a single notebook brand! (I thought one might be Black & Red, but I’m not sure.)
I love buying notebooks. I buy them even when I don’t need them.
The photo shows the notebooks I found in my study. (Which admittedly is a large room, and I don’t think there are too many other notebooks lying around the house; maybe just 3 or 4.) As you can see, I like my notebooks to be hardbacked, or spiral-bound, or preferably both…
Out of the 12 there, 3 have never been used, and another 3 are currently blank because I ripped out the old unwanted scribbles that they had. (I didn’t lose anything meaningful – just Italian vocabulary lists, a few pages of holiday spending, and some old work notes.)
All the ones that have been used have some sort of history. Even the ones that haven’t have something about them. That grey, blue and red striped one in the middle? Bought in Asda for £1 the other week just because I liked the look of it. No idea what I’ll use it for.
Read more about each of the notebooks at Sharp Words: A strange obsession with notebooks.
Here’s something very cool from the British Library, which I noticed my friend at notizbuchblog.de posted about recently. On the library’s website, you can look through some wonderful old books, including priceless items like the poet and artist William Blake’s notebook below:
See more at Virtual books: images only – The Notebook of William Blake: Introduction.
They also have selections from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks:
See more at The Leonardo Notebook- Introduction.
These are just gorgeous!
This set of eight books is a treasure. The books are the journals of a kasuri weaver/dyer from Omi, an area of Japan (present-day Shiga Prefecture) which produced some of Japan’s finest hemp and ramie kasuri textiles, known as Omi jofu.
The books date from 1859 through the beginning of last century. Within them are countless pages of sketches, notes, ideas, technical renderings and working drawings of the patterns and motives that will be dyed and woven by the atelier. This is a remarkable archive.
Remarkable and very beautiful! See more at A Very Rare Group of Eight 19th Century Notebooks from a Kasuri Dyeworks in Omi | Sri Threads.
I’m a big fan of the Hand Book Journals, so I was excited to see that Blick has 3-packs at a great price, 53% off the suggested retail. Unfortunately it’s only for the large size, and only in black… but if you use them, it’s a good chance to grab a few!
