(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And check out her latest book, Out of Water, now available where books are sold!)
It's such a great thing when good notebooks are also pretty. These Kawachiya Paper Lab Kamon designs (Japanese house crests) are so gorgeous. They are crisply letter-pressed into matcha green cardstock with a slight texture to it, which makes the whole book wonderfully tactile. The pressing can even be felt on the inside of the cover. It makes a fantastic first impression, so I was excited to try the paper.
Under that stunning cover are 64 pages of cream-colored dot grid paper. It feels like a heavy gsm, though I can't find the exact specs. In weight, crispness, and texture it reminds me a lot of Midori MD paper, maybe slightly smoother--closer to a heavy Tomoe River. The dots are dark grey and more pronounced than in some notebooks, so they don't fade into the background much, but do serve as excellent guides.
The pages are staple-bound with two brass staples. That does leave the top and bottom edges loose, which isn't an ideal structure as far as durability goes. But the minimal binding does help train the notebook to lay flat easily once the crease is smoothed.
The paper itself performs very well. Even a wet, bold fountain pen line with black ink has zero show-through. Magic! The only thing to defeat this paper, as usual, is the Sharpie. Pencil users might find this paper a little bit too smooth for harder leads.
Slim A5 notebooks with great paper aren't as rare as they were a few years ago. Once upon a time, that was quite difficult to find! Now they're everywhere, and it take a bit extra for new ones to stand out. I think this lovely letter-pressed design is a total standout. The perfect, tiny details are charming and beautiful. At $14, though, it is more than twice the cost of a similar Clairefontaine notebook. I think it's worth it for its handcrafted cover, but it's not something I'd buy in bulk, even if all the available colors are lovely. As a special treat, though, it's great.
(Vanness Pens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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