Posts filed under Midori

Midori Spiral Ring Notebook B7 Elephant Review

(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.)

Midori always rocks the vintage minimal elegance. Those of us who like our analog tools to give us a sense of timeless utility are going to dig the Midori aesthetic. That being said, I think this little beauty is misnamed as a notebook. The Midori B7 Elephant is more of a sketchbook, I've found.

When I first opened this up and started playing with it, I really disliked it. The paper is very thick, like a hearty index card, but it doesn't take ink that well. There's quite a lot of feathering with fountain pens, and the paper is fibrous enough that fine-pointed gel and rollerballs feel snaggy. There are also only 20 sheets of paper. For me, that's a single-serving notebook. And when it comes to notebooks, I want the whole pie. Also true for actual pie.

What does work well in this wee book? Ballpoint pens were okay. Paint soaked into the paper fibers too much--even with paint liner pens. Pencils, colored pencils, and pastels worked the best. Suddenly, the 20 cardstock pages made much more sense--this is a sketchbook. And so the ugly duckling realized he was really a beautiful swan.

As a pocket sketchbook, it's pretty great. The cardboard cover is sturdy and folds over neatly or lays flat. The brass spiral coil is the most durable I've encountered and promises to hold up to some rough carry without getting smooshed and distorting the whole book. I do wish the sheets were perforated--the heavy paper and thick wire make page removal difficult and messy.

This particular model is the Elephant and has grey paper. A wee elephant is stamped into the corner of the cover. The Polar Bear has white paper and the Camel has brown. The books come in other sizes as well--B6, A5, and A6 in both horizontal and vertical binding orientations. This B7 is perfect for a back pocket or to slip into a day pack for an afternoon of sketching adventures.

I'm glad I kept playing beyond my initial impression of this book. But it does serve to illustrate how important a product's name is when it comes to customer expectations. I maintain that it's a dreadful notebook! A person who is new to the Midori brand who is looking for a notebook and who purchases this based on the Midori reputation may find themselves disappointed. I suspect wandering sketchers will find it to be a pocketful of joy.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

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Posted on October 27, 2016 by Sarah Read and filed under Midori, Notebook Reviews.

Midori Camel Spiral Ring Notebook Review

A few times a year I pick out a product from JetPens that I think is one thing and ends up as not at all what was in my head. I’m bad at reading descriptions apparently. Most of the time it works out just fine because I am a stationery junkie and like almost everything. Additionally, it forces me to go outside of my comfort zone, which is a great position to be in when it comes to reviews.

The Midori Camel Spiral Ring Notebook is a kraft cover stock spiral bound notebook, or so I thought. It is also a kraft paper on the inside notebook, which I didn’t consider when selecting based on the title of the product alone. Turns out, this kraft paper is pretty great.

When I think of craft paper my mind immediately jumps to a paper bag. The surface of paper bags aren’t smooth, and if you have ever experimented writing on one you know they are porous and soak up ink. The paper in this Midori is not that at all. It is smoother than you think (although not dead smooth like standard Rhoda paper for example), and the ink performs far better than I anticipated with little to no bleed or feathering.

It was a given in my mind that I would test this paper with the Uni-ball Signo UM-153 white gel ink pen. It is tailor made for an application like this. The 1.0 mm line is thick and looks awesome. And since it was a gel ink pen there is little to no chance it would feather or bleed through the page.

What I wasn’t so convinced of was using liquid inks like found in rollerballs, brush pens, and fountain pens. I thought the brush pens would go right through the page, but they didn’t come close to doing that. Both of the Kuretake brush pens I tested were great, and might be the ideal pen for this notebook. No feathering at all from either. The Schmidt P8126 roller came close to bleeding through the page. I could tell it was getting into the fibers, but the ink never made it through the back.

Fountain pen inks behaved well, with the Califolio Andrinople from a medium stub nib being the only one showing the slightest bit of feathering around the edges. And that only occurred as it dried. When I was writing I didn’t see it at all. The lone negative is that it wasn’t smooth enough for me to use my XXF fountain pen nibs comfortably, but that is an outlier. Otherwise, this kraft paper exceeded every expectation I had for it.

The only thing left for me to determine is how to use the Midori Camel. It feels like purely a sketchbook at this point. I wouldn’t choose it for notes or journaling, but for drawings and sketches it is ideal, especially with easy rotation into landscape mode.

The A5 Slim size in this review contains 80 sheets for $14, and the smaller A6 Slim has the same amount of sheets for $10.75, both from JetPens.com.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Brad Dowdy and filed under Midori, Notebook Reviews.

Midori Color Paper Notebook A5 Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

The Midori Color Paper Notebook is a 28-sheet (56 pages front and back) staple-bound, soft-cover notebook in A5 (8x6 inches). The series, which comes in several colors, including pink, blue-green, purple, yellow, brown, and yellow-green, is meant to evoke French macaron's, with darker colors on the outside and softer colors on the inside.

Each notebook has an oval heading area on the cover outlined in gold (this shape is based on the macaron). The pages inside are lined in gray ink with 6.5mm spacing. The paper weight is not indicated on the notebook, the JetPens website, or the Midori website, but it is heavy enough to handle fountain pens (see below).

The notebook offers plenty of lines per page for writing substantial thoughts, but it is small enough to fit in a larger notebook or a purse. These notebooks stand out from other Midori notebooks because of their bright covers and pastel interiors. They are well made, but they won't hold up to heavy abuse. The card stock cover is fairly light and bends easily. Pages are not perforated so if you want to remove one, you'll have to tear it out carefully. The notebook does not lie flat on its own, though you could probably bend the cover backwards to help it stay open.

The paper holds up well to different pens and inks. I tested it with most of my fountain pens, each with a different color of ink, as well as a few other kinds of pens.

Although in my first test, the Pelikan Jade ink in my Omas bled and feathered, I think this is because I had just refilled the pen.

When I re-tested that particular ink and pen, the paper handled it fine.

Even my broadest, wettest nib (a Nakaya music nib inked with Sailor Yama-Dori) did not bleed through or feather.

There was, however, some show-through with several of the inks. Thus, if you plan on using fountain pens, you might want to use only one side of the pages, which means you'll only get 28 pages per notebook.

Although the Midori Color Notebook is nicely made, it is not something I would likely use. For journaling, I prefer notebooks with more pages that can be put in a refillable cover. For people who like to have multiple notebooks for different tasks, however, these might be quite useful. For example, a student could use a different color notebook for each class (though he/she wouldn't be able to take copious notes). A person who keeps a gratitude journal could use a different color each month and rotate them. They would make beautiful guest books for baby or bridal showers. I suspect these notebooks will be popular with many people.