Posts filed under Notebook Reviews

Kunisawa Find Pocket 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 market for good pocket notebooks is one that continually grows and allows new players to offer their unique take on what makes a pocket notebook great. The latest notebook I've had the pleasure of using is from a company called Kunisawa. The Find Pocket Notebook is a plain book with good paper, strong and attractive binding, and a great price.

Like any true pocket notebook, the Find Pocket comes in at 145x90mm (or 5.7x3.5"), which is a great size for stuffing in pockets, bags, and other small spaces. It's just a little taller than a standard Field Notes book, so you already know the form factor. With 50 sheets, you also get a bit more use out of it through its life.

The cover is a thick and durable chipboard. I love the texture and colors of these books. I have three versions, which come in a light gray-blue, a tan khaki color, and a medium gray. The bottom corners are rounded, which make it easier to slip into pockets without getting snagged. This isn't the thickest chipboard I've seen on notebooks, but it's certainly a durable variant. I've had no concerns that the cover will ever tear, break, or come undone from the binding.

Unlike a lot of pocket notebooks these days, the Find Pocket notebook contains minimal branding. On the front cover, there's a small gold-embossed logo that includes the company name along with a small bird. On the inside of the front cover, there's a small embossed logo as well. The only other branding present on this book is in the inside of the back cover, which contains the company logo, name, and some information on where it was made.

The binding is an attractive double spiral made from (what looks like) brass. It's fairly strong and resilient, but it can be bent and misshapen if enough pressure is applied. The binding is smooth, looks great, and does a great job of keeping the pages connected. The color an absolutely perfect compliment to the cover colors.

Now to the paper! The paper in this notebook is lightweight, but still very capable. The exact weight isn't listed on the website, but I'd guess it's somewhere around the 80 or 90 gsm. The pages are not perforated, so keep that in mind if you tend to remove pages from spiral notebooks. It's possible with this notebook, but you have to tear from the binding and deal with the paper teeth that are left behind.

The paper is covered in a light gray graph pattern. The graph is spaced at 5mm, which is a comfortable distance. The paper is also a light cream color, which also looks great against the binding color.

The paper looks and feels nice, but it's also a great paper to write on! I tried many pens with this paper, and it performed incredibly well. No issues with bleeding or feathering, and acceptable amounts of show-through on the back of the page. Depending on the pen and ink you're using, you can probably write on both sides of the page. The paper has a smooth coating on top of it that makes writing an enjoyable experience. This coating does mean that dry times are close to 15 or 20 seconds in most cases. Despite that, this paper is fantastic.

The retail price of the Kunisawa Find Pocket notebooks are somewhere between six and seven US Dollars (750 yen), which is a great deal. The paper is premium, the aesthetic has a great vibe, and it fits in small spaces.

There are many shops that carry the Kunisawa brand, and if you happen upon these notebooks, I encourage you to give them a try. You really can't go wrong.

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

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Posted on September 5, 2018 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Kunisawa, Notebook Reviews.

Kyokuto F.O.B. COOP To Do List Sticky Notes Review

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

If there's one thing I always wish there were more of, it's high-quality sticky notes. The brand that made sticky notes famous doesn't use the highest quality paper, which is a bummer. There are a few other companies that strive to make sticky notes that work with more than just standard ballpoints and gel pens, but they are few and far between.

I recently discovered the Kyokuto F.O.B. COOP To Do List Sticky Notes (what a name, right? I'll refer to them as Kyokuto sticky notes from now on.), which has renewed my interest in this category. The Kyokuto sticky notes come in three variations: To Do List, Daily, and Weekly. Each sticky pad has 30 one-sided sheets and measures in at 2 x 5.5 inches. This is a perfect size for attaching these small notes to the margin of another notebook, planner, or calendar.

The to do list variant has 15 lines with check boxes included. The Daily version has hourly markers starting at 9 and ending at 22. Finally, the weekly version includes all seven days of the week along with three small check boxes for each day next to the date section.

Each sticky note pad has a translucent protective cover that looks really cool. Yeah, it has some branding and example scribbles on the cover, but I like the frosty translucent look.

In use, I've found it easier to remove a sticky note and apply it to another surface before I start jotting down notes, but it works fine while still in the pad. Your mileage may vary.

On the surface, these sticky pads seem to do a great job of filling their utilitarian purpose. In practice, I think it will come down to personal preference and how small you can write. In every variation, I don't have a comfortable amount of room to write out my tasks, agenda, or events. I don't enjoy writing small, but I also don't think I write that large in the first place. 2x5.5" is a convenient size, but I'd love to see a 2.5x7" or something similar so I have a little extra room to breathe.

The quality of these little pads is top notch. The printing is sharp, the shading on different rows in the daily planner is great, and the idea is fantastic. The paper quality is great, but not resilient against certain fountain pen/ink combinations. In my practice, fine nibs with inks that have anti-bleed tendencies are best with these sticky pads. That said, these pads are only meant to be written on the top side, which makes bleed-through irrelevant as long as the bleed doesn't soak into the next page. I haven't had that happen, but I'm sure some inks are up to the challenge.

Gel pens, rollerballs, and ballpoints work great with this paper. It's a smooth, glossy texture that's pleasant to use. The top inch of the paper has an adhesive backing, so sticking these notes onto other surfaces is easy and secure. I haven't had any issues with corners pulling up or notes falling out of notebooks, so that's a good sign that Kyokuto have used a good adhesive in these pads. That said, the notes are still easy to remove or move around without any degraded adhesive performance.

I think my favorite of the three is the generic to do list variant. It's the most versatile of the bunch, but I like all three. They're a perfect companion to your favorite notebook, planner, or paper calendar.

The Kyokuto F.O.B COOP to do list sticky notes are $5.50 a piece, which means you'll spent over $15 for all three. At 30 sheets, this seems like a premium price, but they are well made. If these were closer to the three-dollar mark, it would be an easier sell, but the price still feels fair if you plan on using these every now and then instead of one or two per day.

You'll probably know from looking at the pictures here or on JetPens whether or not these will be something that you splurge on. If you pick some up, you certainly won't be disappointed by the quality! These cute planner assistants are a lot of fun and do the job well.

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Posted on August 8, 2018 by Jeff Abbott and filed under Kyokuto, Sticky Notes, Notebook Reviews.

The Rhodia Goalbook: A 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 Rhodia Goalbook is a soft, leatherette-covered notebook designed primarily for bullet journaling. The book has two ribbon bookmarks and a built in envelope pocket on the back cover.

It has six table of contents pages, which is quite ample. I really love this feature whether you use the book for goal planning, journaling, or general writing.

A vertical calendar (perpetual) follows the table of contents pages with six months on two facing pages and the other six months on the next two facing pages.

Next are monthly pages divided horizontally into three months per page.

The remainder of the notebook is comprised of 224 dot-grid pages with page numbers printed in the bottom corner.

Since I don’t use the bullet journal method, I decided to use my Rhodia Goalbook as a Commonplace Book. A Commonplace Book is simply a notebook used to compile notes, quotations, and other information you want to keep. I’m primarily using mine to keep track of what I’m reading along with quotations and other snippets of information I find relevant or interesting.

I’m using the vertical calendar to keep track of when I start and finish reading a book.

In the monthly section, I list all the books (or short stories) I’ve read that month along with my rating for most of them.

I set aside the first few pages of the notebook to test different inks and nib sizes to see how well the paper holds up. There’s a bit of show through, but no bleed through.

In the remainder of the book, I’ve been writing out selections from the books I’ve been reading along with some quotations and other material, such as the theme song to one of my favorite television series, The Expanse. Cool fact: did you know that the title song is in Norwegian (apparently not grammatically correct Norwegian, but still)?

You can see that next to the book quotations I’ve identified major themes. I plan to index these at the end of my notebook.

I also wrote a summary paragraph describing what I thought of the book.

I think the Rhodia Goalbook works well as a Commonplace Book since it already has a table of contents and enumerated pages. Obviously, it would also be perfect for bullet journaling.

Rhodia’s cream-colored Premium "R" 90 g paper paper is smooth and very fountain pen friendly. The dot-grid pattern makes it easy to write either vertically or horizontally, and of course you can use the dots to make check boxes if you’re bullet journaling. The two ribbons are handy so that you can bookmark two sections of the journal for easy reference.

You can purchase the Rhodia Goalbook from JetPens for $24.95. The Goalbooks come in a wide array of colors: sapphire, iris, purple, black, chocolate, turquoise, yellow, anise, silver, tangerine, orange, taupe, beige, lilac, poppy, and raspberry. I think it’s another terrific offering from Rhodia.

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

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