Craft Design Technology A5 Notepad Review

It’s a rare day when I miss a cool Japanese stationery product, but the Craft Design Technology A5 Notepad escaped my field of view until Caroline Weaver of C.W. Pencil Enterprises mentioned it to Myke and I on Episode 252 of The Pen Addict Podcast.

I’ve reviewed other Craft Design Technology (CDT for short) products in the past, and I refer to them as a design firm in the stationery business. They don’t manufacture their own goods, but partner with existing brands to reimagine products with the CDT aesthetic. Most of that aesthetic involves mint green.

For this notepad, CDT partnered with Life Notebooks. It is a desk pad with top-perforated sheets in an A5 size. The paper is Life’s standard cream colored offering with a mint green grid - aka the CDT touch.

The quality of this notepad - as expected - is top notch. The construction is solid, and the paper performance with nearly any pen and pencil is perfect. The grid pattern is even printed on both sides, which is not something you always see when a plain border is used around the edge of the page.

What surprised me the most about the paper was how it handled pencil. With a cream colored background I thought graphite would blend in and be hard to see, but the opposite took place. It practically jumps off the page with HB and 2B grades and looks great. I see why Caroline likes this pad so much.

If you are waiting for the hammer to drop on this product, here it is. It’s $12 for a 50 page notepad. This is Craft Design’s modus operandi. They collaborate with other brands and put the CDT twist on existing products. That comes at a cost. A simple example is the Camel HB pencil. The standard model from Camel is $1.50. The CDT Camel HB is $2.00. The internals are the same, only the color and stamping on the pencil are different.

A 50 cent increase on a pencil isn’t a large sum of money, but you see where this is headed as you climb the ladder. I’m not opposed to this business model by any stretch - I own several CDT products that I enjoy. I just want you to be aware that you are paying for minty freshness, not added performance. But sometimes all it takes is a fresh coat of paint for me to open my wallet.

(I paid full price for these goods with my own money.)

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Clairefontaine Triomphe Stationery: A5 Tablet and Envelopes 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.)

I really wish I wrote more letters than I do. A few years ago, I signed up to be pen pals with several other pen addicts. It was actually really fun. I had an Australian, British, and several American pen friends, and we wrote back and forth for almost a year. But then I got overwhelmed at work and extremely depressed, and I just . . . stopped. I’m really sorry that I did.

Regardless, I still write to a few people occasionally. When I do write letters, I prefer using nice stationery, and Clairefontaine is one of the best brands. I’m reviewing the Clairefontaine A5 blank tablet and the small envelopes.

The A5 tablet has 50 sheets of 90g acid-free, pH neutral paper. The first page is lined so you can use it as a guide. The other pages are smooth-as-silk, pure white paper.

The paper is glued to form a tablet, but pages are easy to remove without tearing them.

I tested the paper with several fountain pens, a rollerball, some gel pens, and a Sharpie. All of them wrote beautifully on this paper.

Although some of the broader nibbed pens’ ink showed through slightly, the only bleed through came from the Sharpie. But I doubt most people would use Sharpie pens to write letters on nice stationery.

The only pen that bled through was the Sharpie (the last lines in green).

The Clairefontaine paper is super smooth, so I tested a few inks for dry times. As I suspected, if you use broad nibs and wet inks, the dry time on this paper is significant. The only ink that dried fairly quickly was Iroshizuku Shin-Kai, and it’s drier than my other Iroshizuku inks. In any case, just keep in mind that fountain pen ink will take some time to dry on this paper. Lefties may find this paper difficult to use.

Although I appeciate that Clairefontaine provides one sheet of lined paper as a guide, the lines aren’t dark enough for me. I love SketchyNotebook’s guides. They are dark and provide a smooth surface on which to write.

The Clairefontaine small envelopes (114mm x 162mm) come in a package of 25. They use the same lovely 90g paper, and they have a peel and stick closure. No licking necessary.

The envelopes hold up just as well as the paper, as you would expect.

I used a cool little template I got from JetPens to address the envelope. It’s called the Lettermate Companion Envelope Addressing Guide. It’s really nice to have something to keep the lines straight.

You can buy Clairefontaine stationery from Goulet Pens. The A5 tablet is just $5.00, and the set of 25 envelopes is also $5.00.

If you’re interested in the SketchyNotebook templates, you can find out more here. And you can get the Lettermate Companion Envelope Addressing Guide for $9.95 at JetPens.

And, hey, if you’re interested in being my pen pal, I’m really awful at it, but we can give it a go.

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

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, which I am very grateful for.

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

Zequenz Classic 360 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 Zequenz Classic 360 journal is one of those rare notebooks that's affordable, easy to find, and really well made. If you go through notebooks fairly quickly, want a range of sizes to choose from, and require good paper, then the Classic 360 is a great option.

The Zequenz Classic 360 notebooks come in a variety of sizes, from pocket (3.5" x 5.5") all the way to large (7.5" x 9.8") in grid, blank, or lined paper. Depending on the size you get, the sheet count is between 120 and 200, which is quite a lot. The model I'm using is called medium (5" x 7"), and I think it's a great size. At 200 sheets, it's a bit thick, but still manages to be roughly the same thickness as a Baron Fig Confidant. At 70gsm, the paper isn't going to win any awards with the fountain pen crowd, but it does handle fountain pen inks fairly well. In my use, some inks feather a tad, but it's not that bad. Also, almost all inks show through on the opposite page, save gel and ballpoint inks. So, if you plan on using these notebooks with a fountain pen or rollerball, you can effectively cut the page count in half since the back sides of pages aren't totally usable.

Despite the thinness of the paper, it's really smooth and enjoyable to use. Even though water-based inks show through, it's a delight to use. Leuchtturm1917 notebooks are similar in price and handle fountain pens and rollerballs with almost not show-through, but you also get about half the number of pages (~249 vs. 400) in the Zequenz notebook. It's a great value for the quality of paper inside, and you can also rest assured that the paper is acid free.

The Zequenz notebooks come in black or red and feature a polyurethane "leather-like" cover that looks and feels very nice. It's very pliable, and Zequenz touts that you can roll the book up. I'm not sure why you'd ever want to do this, but it is indeed possible.

The binding is unique on the Zequenz 360 notebooks in that it is curved. The pages are bound with a strong glue in a slightly curved fashion to improve the strength and usability of the notebook. In practice, this notebook feels well-made and sturdy. Even after bending it back and forth, throwing it in bags, holding it up for long periods, rolling it into a baton of sorts and throwing it back on the desk, it retains its shape and looks no worse for wear. Zequenz have done a great job on the binding for these books.

Unlike most of the competitors in this market, the Zequenz 360 notebooks do not have a fabric bookmark tail for marking your place. However, they do come outfitted with a handy magnetic bookmark so you can easily pick up where you left off. The magnet bookmark is a nice touch and is really easy to use. It's just strong enough to latch onto a single page, but it loses its grip when you put more than ~20 pages between its jaws. Overall, a great tool for the notebook.

Writing in the notebook is a great experience. The paper is smooth with a tiny amount of feedback, and the ruling is very light. Due to the thickness of the notebook, it can be a bit uncomfortable writing on something that's almost an inch tall, but this is true of any thick notebook as you get to the bottom of a page.

Unlike the competitors, the Zequenz notebooks do not feature any front pages for noting your name, email, phone number, etc., and there are no pockets included in the front or back covers. There also isn't an elastic closure band to keep the notebook shut, but I haven't had any problems with this book staying shut on its own.

Overall, the Zequenz Classic 360 notebook is a great value, and one that I've enjoyed carrying around using over the past few weeks. At 200 sheets, it's bound to stick with me for quite a while before it's time for a new one. Based on how it's held up to abuse so far, I have no worries that it will be in great shape when that 400th page is filled up.

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

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Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, which I am very grateful for.

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