The World's Best Notebook...the Quest Continues

[Izzywizzy]

Hi All,

 

This is my first post and hope this specific topic hasn't been covered already.

 

I stumbled on this website quite by accident and blown away by the passion and rich myriad of resources

 

I recently converted to a fountain pen user and but have always liked nice notebooks, I work as a consultant and have found your writing tools is a further reflection of your professionalism and desire to engage with clients.

 

However, since taking up fountain pens, I have started to appreciate the finer details with the notebooks as you all know well and tried numerous well known brands as well as a lesser known and still struggle to find the "perfect notebook". Things that matter to me is notebooks staying flat without having to apply force, smooth perfect writing that glides across the page no matter which pen I use, nice size line spacing, good quality spine, page numbering to name a few.

 

What I found is there were good points in most notebooks, but rarely did one have all/most of them

 

So I just wanted to get your views on what might the "perfect notebook", hope you would be so kind as to share your thoughts:

 

1) Plain paper, lined, square or dot grid

2) A5 (13 x 21 or 14.5 x 21) or B5 (A4 seems to be less common)

3) Type of paper, Rhodia, Moleskine, Tomoe River, Maruman, Kokuyo, Leuchtturm etc

4) Size of line spacing, 5.5mm, 6mm, 7mm, 8mm

5) Type of Cover, soft PU, hard cover, plain or textured effect, spiral ring bound etc

6) Page Numbering/Contents Page

7) Front document enclosure similar to Sigel Conceptum

8) Removable dividers to organise info better (post it do something similar)

9) Type of spine binding stitched, glued etc

 

Thanks!

Izzy

[Moshe ben David]

There is no one uniquely right answer. Even for an individual, there will likely be several answers, depending on the use(s) the selected notebooks are destined for.

[Hewson]

1) Blank rule

2) A5 (13 x 21 or 14.5 x 21)

3) Apica, Life, Rhodia (only the webbies or premium bloc pads) or anything else FP friendly and ivory

4) 0 since it's line but preferrably 6mm

5) Textured soft cover like the Apica premium covers or the soft leather like the Moleskine cahiers

6) Numbered would be nice

7) No enclosure (makes it hard to write on first few pages)

8) No organisers

9) Glued page by page for easy laying down flat on a table

For journalling in my case

Edited June 29, 2014 by Hewson

[BillZ]

I agree that I don't think there is one perfect notebook for all occasions. I would look for a brand that had a variety of styles that met your various requests. The quality and consistency

of the paper is paramount. It's the base to build upon. When you find this Holy Grail, let us know, please.

[Notebookish]

1. Dot grid for lectures, meetings, projects - it is the most versatile. But in journals and pocket notebooks, I like blank pages because I often need to scrawl.

2. A5 for journals, A4 for lecture/meeting books and projects.

3. Kokuyo notebooks IMHO have the best quality, but are not always available in flexible formats and there is some variation amongst their different notebook lines. Tomoe is in 2nd but is a little too light.

4. 5mm dot grid or 6 mm ruled, typically.

5. Hard cover for journals and projects; spiral fold-over for lectures/meetings.

6. Love TOCs and page #s when I can get them.

7. I like pockets.

8. I like removable pocket dividers in circa spira notebooks.

9. Stiched for my hard-bound notebooks; never glued.

I use, by my count, 5 types of notebooks for 5 different purposes, and the entry would grow too long so I wrote a blog post instead.