Posts filed under Notebook Reviews

Mark's HiBi Weekly Notebook Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Mark's HiBi Weekly notebook is a small spiral notebook that spreads your entire week on a single page, making it easy to plan events and tasks for each day. Unlike a lot of weekly or daily planners, this one features a wide landscape orientation, and also sports a back cover that allows the notebook to stand up on its own so you can easily reference the planner on your desk.

At 8.3 x 4.6 inches, it's a familiar size. It's a bit smaller than an A5 notebook, which makes it easy to store and transport, but also allowing enough room on the page for an entire week. While it's great that the full week is available on every page, that's where this notebook causes me trouble. Due to the small size, I've had trouble using the notebook since I don't normally write super small. Even if I do write incredibly small, there still isn't much room for me to add meetings, appointments, and tasks for each day without everything feeling incredibly cramped. At first glance, it looked like a great format. After using it for a week, I was a bit disappointed.

For me, the functionality was a flop, but what about the build quality? The notebook features a top-bound twin spiral ring that seems rugged, but can be difficult to turn pages without getting stuck. The chipboard that makes up the front and back covers are incredibly strong, and I have no doubt they'll stand up to a great deal of abuse. The kickstand on the back cover is a novel idea, but it does add bulk to the notebook when it's closed and laying flat. If you're using it to stand up the notebook, it works great.

Once you get to the paper, the build quality starts to decline. The paper has a smooth feel that's pleasant to write on, and it's thin without feeling fragile. I also haven't seen any feathering when using different pens on this paper, which is a good sign. However, the show-through on the opposite page is significant. Even with a micro-tip gel pen, there's almost too much show-through to use the back page. And since every page has a front and a back, that poses a significant problem. The Schmidt P8126 and fountain pen inks caused the most show-through, but the only option that hasn't caused some sort of show-through is pencil. I was disappointed by this attribute of the paper, because it's pleasant to use if you discount the show-through property.

Unfortunately, this notebook didn't mesh with my daily routine or writing style. It could potentially be fixed by removing a lot of the lines that create the feeling of cramped writing space, but fitting seven days of information on a single sheet is always a tall order. This might work great for some people with specific use cases, but it just didn't hold up for me. That, together with the paper quality and problematic spiral binding, ultimately makes this notebook difficult to recommend unless you can think of specific uses that will suite your needs.

The model used in this review is orange, but that color isn't currently available on JetPens. Today, they offer blue, pink, and yellow, and each notebook is just under $10.

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

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Posted on October 3, 2018 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Mark's, Notebook Reviews.

Cognitive Surplus Notebook 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.)

Science without art, art without science--no good. They need each other. And If you were to draw a Venn diagram of where they overlap, you'd probably want to draw it in a Cognitive Surplus notebook.

These notebooks are truly beautiful. With cover designs inspired by scientific illustrations from anatomy to entomology to astronomy, there's bound to be one or five you can't resist. When I first found them a few years ago, I had some kind of notebook-induced blackout and I regret nothing. I had just started working in my last book from that wee binge when Cognitive Surplus announced their new designs and new paper. Even better, they asked me to give their new paper a try.

The new notebooks still have the gorgeous scientific illustrations on the covers, and now they have illustrated endpapers as well. They come in a variety of sizes and line formats, hard and soft cover, grid or dots or lines or blank, or a combination. My favorite are the larger hardcover books, which also include a ribbon bookmark. But for maximum design options, you can get a pack of smaller notebooks in different sciency themes. Really, you can't choose wrong.

Cognitive Surplus is a dedicated green company. Check out their webpage on sustainability to see just how much care they put into operating in an environmentally responsible manner. I'm impressed. It makes me want even more notebooks.

The paper that CS used to use was extremely fountain pen friendly. I used all sorts of inks and pens in it with no trouble at all. It was crisp white and showed off the subtlety of ink colors and never bled or feathered. But the folks at CS thought they could do better--environmentally better. So this summer they replaced their paper stock with a newer, greener option.

Of course, they were concerned about whether or not it would perform as well as the previous paper--and unfortunately it doesn't. Like a lot of recycled papers, it has a warmer tone to it that doesn't show colors as well, and it doesn't hold up as well when in contact with liquid inks. There's some bleed-through and feathering, and with wetter inks, it looks almost as if the paper fibers are separating as they soak it up. With fine point pens and dryer inks I had no problem, though. So you can still use fountain pens in these notebooks--just not the firehose pens.

Pencil, ballpoint, gel, and rollerball all did great. If you've got a non-fountain pen that you love, then you are totally golden with these notebooks.

Is this paper going to delight fountain pen enthusiasts? No. It works in so much as I can still read what I wrote, but it doesn't perform in any spectacular way with liquid ink. It doesn't show off color or shading or sheen, or any of those other papery tricks we pen addicts swoon over.

I think this paper does something better than that, though. Cognitive Surplus has prioritized the environment over fancy features and I commend them for it. They make beautiful, functional, responsible books and my initial disappointment in the paper led me to question my own priorities when it comes to my paper needs. It's not the end of the world if my broad/wet nibs/inks bleed through the page a little, but it literally is the end of the world for species losing their habitats to deforestation and climate change. So take a peek at your papers and your priorities and maybe give a greener option a try. Because small actions do add up. Plus, in the dystopian wasteland, there's nowhere to wash your pen, anyway.

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

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Posted on September 27, 2018 by Sarah Read and filed under Cognitive Surplus, Notebook Reviews.

Kunisawa Find Smart Notebook Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

A couple of weeks ago, Susan posted a review of the Find A5 notebook, and I also wrote about the Find Pocket notebook, both of which are produced by Kunisawa.

To round out my own experiences with these notebooks, I have the Kunisawa Find Smart notebooks. These notebooks are a unique offering because of their size. They don't fit a standard ISO paper size, but it's similar to a slim version of a B6 notebook. At only 95x167mm, it's a size that will easily fit in a pocket or pouch, but affords you some extra vertical space for writing. It's about the same width as a standard Field Notes book, but you get an extra inch on top.

Another unique attribute of this notebook is the cover. It's a nicely constructed hard cover with an elegant gold-debossed logo on the front. Apart from the company slogan in the inside front cover ("I do not seek, I find") and the additional logo in the inside back cover, there is no other branding on this book. It's delightfully minimal.

The binding is well done on all three books I have. It's a stitched binding that's also glued into a spine and covered with the hardcover. It seems incredibly durable and feels great. The book has no trouble laying flat and closing properly.

The notebook also features gold foil on the page edges, but I'm not a fan of gold foiled pages. It does match the front logo foil, so that's nice. If I had the option, I'd go with plain white paper edges over gold foil any day.

Once you open the notebook, you're greeted with some polarizing graph paper. It's a small 2.5mm grid, which can take some getting used to if you don't use it regularly. I don't use it very often, so my eyes struggled to cope with the small squares the first few times I opened the book. After writing for a bit, I figured out the sweet spot for my writing, but I don't prefer this kind of graph paper. I'd rather have a standard 5mm graph.

Unlike the other Kunisawa notebooks we've reviewed here, this paper is a noticeable cream color. I'm not a huge fan of the color of the paper, as it can alter the appearance of some inks. Again, after using it for a bit, I stopped noticing.

Once I started writing with this paper, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a decent paper, but not as fountain pen friendly as they claim. It can certainly handle a wide variety of inks and pens, but you can kiss the back of the page goodbye. In some instances, there is heavy feathering depending on the ink you use. The show-through to the back page is significant. Depending on the pens you use, the back page won't be useful.

Despite the "meh" performance, it's a very smooth paper and is pleasant to use. It's comparable to Field Notes paper in how it handles different inks, but it's a tad smoother.

On the Kunisawa website, the Find Smart notebook goes for 1,000 yen (each), which translates to about $9. At this price, I can't recommend the notebook when I know what other options exist in the stationery world. It's a decent notebook, but I'm not sure it lives up to the price.

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