Custom Notebooks from Bookblock Original

Tags

bookblock.com, castelli, custom notebooks, gf smith, moleskine, monsieur notebook, waterman

Hello everyone! Apologies for the two weeks between blog posts; it’s been a busy couple of weeks. But I really wanted to share this post with you today. I’m really excited about the product so couldn’t wait to share it with you, after it finally reached me (due to moving, sigh).

Imagine being able to take any photo or piece of artwork and turn it into a journal cover! That’s what the folks at Bookblock in the UK do. They’ve been offering custom notebooks to brands and agencies since 2013. They recently added a new offering, Bookblock Original, which allows individuals to create a completely unique, one off notebook on their website, with full bleed digitally printed covers. And they have created custom notebooks for this website!!

For about the same price as a Moleskine anyone can order a notebook with any artwork digitally printed onto the covers. The notebooks are printed in the UK on recycled paper. And the price includes shipping: $26 US or thereabouts. You can add your own photos or artwork plus graphic details such as stickers or speech bubbles. You can choose the colour of the elastic and the colour of the background (spine and edges). You can choose the type of paper: Ruled, Plain or Dot Grid on 90gsm ivory, or Sketch on 140gsm Cartridge.

Back in February of this year the folks at Bookblock contacted me, to see if I would be interested in reviewing one of their notebooks. I agreed and the process began. We discussed artwork and ended up with them designing something around my blog name. I really love the finished product.

Image Bookblock sent me during the customization process.

It took awhile for the books to reach me. A LONG while. As I’ve mentioned here before we had some major problems with our mail forwarding. And the customer service at Bookblock were really fantastic about it. The three books shown above were sent to my previous address as we were starting the move process. And when I still hadn’t seen them by the end of May Phoebe at Bookblock sent me two more. So generous of them and I really appreciate it. In a crazy twist, BOTH packages arrived at my new address on the same day! Strange how the postal system works sometimes.

First let me say the notebooks are gorgeous. The soft-touch, vegan leather covers are smooth and lovely to touch. They have collaborated with a bookbinder in the UK to create the hand-crafted notebooks in small batches. And the quality shows.

Image from Bookblock. You don’t often see a white elastic and I quite like it!

The binding is excellent; the book lays flat out of the box. I received two lined and three blank.

There are several different kinds of custom notebooks you can choose from on the website: Monsieur Notebook, Moleskine, Castelli, GF Smith, and of course the Bookblock brand. The digitally printed notebooks look to be exclusively Monsieur Notebook (sound familiar? Check out my review of their notebooks here); all of my journals are Monsieur Notebook.

Each notebook has a place for your details, but no index.

The Moleskine A5 is slightly smaller than this notebook, which comes in at almost 6″ x 8″. Both notebooks are 0.6 mm ruling. The Moleskine has a pocket in the back cover; these notebooks do not. (It is a feature you can add with a custom order.) Both notebooks have an elastic and a ribbon but of course you can add your own combination with Bookblock, which I think is super cool. Blue and Green, Green and Pink, or Orange and Orange, it’s up to you. They actually have a long list of add-ons: in addition to the pocket you can add a custom presentation box (always an elegant touch), pen loop, belly band, and printed inserts. You could also have a full colour logo, foiled or debossed logo. These customizations are not all available for the one off notebooks.

Now my poor photography looks even poorer against the beautiful images from Bookblock! But you can see in this photo the Bookblock notebook is slightly wider than the Moleskine.

The ribbon on my much-loved Hobbit Moleskine is definitely fraying, compared to the brand new ribbon on the Bookblock notebook. Time will tell if this ribbon will remain so pristine.

No notebook review would be complete without the ink test!

The paper is 90 gsm as mentioned previously, and it takes fountain pen ink relatively well. You’ll notice I smeared the ink on purpose to test the drying time and it is about 4 seconds. The Waterman Kultur pen didn’t show feathering but the other fountain pens definitely did.

The blue ink above is Waterman Serenity Blue in a Waterman Kultur. I was very impressed with the performance on this paper. The gel ink of the Pilot Coleto was perfect but then again it’s always perfect! And actually every other writing instrument (gels and highliter and pencil) looked flawless on this paper.

I was surprised at the feathering with the TWSBI and the Visconti, inked with Waterman Absolute Brown and Paradise Pen Vineyard Burgundy respectively. It’s not terrible but definitely noticeable.

Arguably the Jinhao is the wost for feathering, and understandable I guess because it has the wettest nib of the three pens. Again it’s a Waterman ink: Inspired Blue.

A bit of show through but not the worst I’ve seen, that’s for sure. 

Undeterred by feathering I wrote three pages with my Waterman Kultur (review coming) and I think the writing looks great. Really enjoyed the writing experience; paper is smooth and the Kultur sailed over it. The messy bit at the very top of this page was created by me, trying to get one of my pens to start writing.

I was disappointed that the fountain pen ink had such varied results in terms of feathering. I also would have liked an index. As a notebook collector I have a number of A5 journal covers, it being my size of choice. It’s too bad that these notebooks are an inch too wide to fit in a standard A5 cover.

Having said all that, I do not hesitate in recommending this company. They did provide me with free notebooks but that did not sway this review. My words and thoughts are my own. They wanted honest feedback and I have given it. I like how individualized these notebooks can be and I do not think the price is too high, considering it includes shipping. The customization possibilities are vast and if there is something you want but can’t figure out on the website their customer service team is excellent. And the books are excellent quality that take fountain pen ink reasonably well.

If you want one custom notebook or one thousand, check out bookblock.com and bookblock.com/original.

 

Monday Miscellany

Tags

buzzfeed, moleskine, postal notebook, the write sort, trina o'gorman

Many thanks to Rita who sent this article from Buzzfeed along. I agree with all 18 things, as I’m sure most if not all of you do too! I love the shot of the to do list with “publish life-changing things” on it – all in a day’s work!

This Moleskine Postal Notebook featured on The Write Sort site is super cool! I agree with Suzie that this would be a great notebook to send home from a trip but it could also be a wonderful ongoing correspondence in a group of friends, each person writing a page then sending it on. Neat!

I enjoyed Trina O’Gorman’s post on Six Ways Keeping a Journal Can Enhance Your Life. She uses her journals and daily journal writing as tools to improve her life as well as the lives of people important to her. And check out her journaling workshops.

Happy journaling everyone!

 

 

Monday Miscellany

Tags

fastcompany.com, journaling, michael grothaus, moleskine, najowrimo, the well appointed desk

Now here’s an article from fastcompany.com that claims journaling is incredibly beneficial to your overall health. But we all know that, don’t we? 🙂 Seriously though, Michael Grothaus gives 8 tips for starting and/or maintaining a journaling practice that will have long lasting benefits. I think my favourite tip is You Needn’t Be Shakespeare; down that road lies pretentiousness.

This is a fun exercise for your journal: 50 Wide-Ranging Lists for Your Journal from the NaJoWriMo site. Some of them sound like a ton of fun, like #6 (list of cities you’ve slept in for at least one night) and #25 (list of the first sentences of your top ten fave books). Others, like #36 (list of personal secrets) might be best kept to yourself, or in a very secure place.

Moleskine Notebooks can get a bad rap for the quality (or lack thereof) of their paper. The Well-Appointed desk took a second and very deep look at the paper in the Cahier, Volant and standard soft-cover Moleskine notebook and presented the findings in this post. Might surprise you; it did me.

Until next post, happy writing!

Monday Miscellany

Tags

goulet pens, moleskine, notebook toolbelt, pen heaven

I subscribe to the Moleskine newsletter and I thought the new Notebook Toolbelt was a neat addition for them. At $55 US I don’t know how popular it will be but it looks cool.

I just love the pictures of notes in this article on the Pen Heaven blog. Good ideas on how to improve your notes and have fun at the same time. When I go to a talk or conference I do try to summarize but I am one of those who try to get every word down. So something I have to work on.

And finally Madigan at Goulet Pens wrote this excellent article, 7 Reasons to Gift a Fountain Pen. You could just print this off and leave it in a conspicuous place so Santa Claus can’t miss it! Enjoy.

Until next post, happy writing!

 

Monday Miscellany

Tags

dave rea, gourmet pens, indxd, moleskine, scribbles and stationery

Gourmet Pens takes us to a beautiful shop called The Posthumus (De Pothumus Winkel) in Amsterdam. Isn’t it gorgeous? All those stamps and seals! Amazing.

Scribbles and Stationery shows off her September Moleskine Journal in this post. Love her pages.

Dave Rea has created an indexing app called Indxd and I’ve signed up for an account. It makes our written journals searchable! And they are backed up. He’s a genius.

Until next post, happy writing!

Hobonichi Techo 2016

Tags

hobonichi techo, moleskine, seven seas writer, wonder pens

Sometimes it’s hard not to jump on a bandwagon. I recently purchased a Hobonichi Techo 2016 in the A6 size, English version. If you search for Hobonichi on YouTube hundreds of videos will be returned. Currently the A6 English version, with a cover, is around $400 Canadian on ebay. I have been interested in these planners for about a year now, wanting to try them because the paper is Tomoe River, the same paper as in the Seven Seas Writer. So when Wonder Pens announced on their blog that they would be carrying the Techos I signed up for the email notification without really thinking about it. It was only asking to be notified; I wasn’t committed to buying one. And when I got the email announcement I did pause at the price: $43 Canadian. I went to the Hobonichi website just to see if ordering direct would be cheaper – no. Shipping to Canada was $66! I think I must have done the Yen to Canadian dollar conversion wrong, judging on the swarms of people who are buying them States side, but even if I did get the math wrong these babies are expensive. So Wonder Pens’ price of $43 plus $8 shipping was a comparative bargain.

And it is a lovely book.

The Japanese characters on the cover stand for te and cho, hence the name. According to the marketing materials: “A techo in Japan is used for more than scheduling an agenda. It is also used as a sketchbook, a diary and for other jottings that together tend to chronicle its owner’s daily life.” These planners are the brainchild of Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shimbun, a very important person at Nintendo, apparently. And they have seemingly taken the planner/journalling community by storm.

The back of the plastic package shows the day per page layout, with the time grid, the dinner icon, the quote and the mini calendar.

The book is sewn so lays flat. The beginning of the book has these monthly pages, with four months to a spread. Good for noting down important dates that occur each year, like birthdays and anniversaries.

Each month also has a two-page spread, and this is the reason (besides the lovely paper) for the purchase; my current Moleskine is great in the weekly spread. But it’s crap for the monthly spread because it’s too small. I need more than one page per month. I’m cramming appointments and things into tiny squares and it’s driving me batty. But I enjoy the weekly spread, which the Techo doesn’t have. Boo. But for me if I had to choose just one layout (month, week or day) it would be the month, definitely. So I will just learn to live without the weekly spread. I hope!

The planner goes to March 2017. I like how there is no doubt as to which year this page is referring to!

I can’t start this planner until Dec 16. There is a monthly spread for December 2015 but the daily pages don’t start until Dec 16; no idea why. And it’s not a full day until Jan 1, 2016.

Here is the daily page layout. Sundays have red ink which is handy when you are flipping through. The grid layout is nice, for lists and things. I’m looking forward to seeing how I fare with daily pages. I haven’t used a daily page in a very long time.

There are a couple of other Hobonichi products which offer weekly spreads. The Cousin, as I understand it, offers a monthly layout, a weekly and a daily. And it’s A5 which is my preferred size. But I understand it is more expensive, not in English and frankly all three layouts in one book seems a tad much. And there is something called the Hobonichi Weeks which I think fit in Midori notebooks. Who knows what I will find myself wanting down the road but I am very happy to start with this little guy and see where I go.

There are covers that these planners fit into and Wonder Pens is currently out of stock on the blue and green one that I like. So hopefully by the time I can start using this I will have a cover as well.

There are a few notes pages at the back of the book in red dot grid format. Such amazing paper. And at the very back of the book are metric conversions, a printed ruler, international dialing codes, etc. There is also information about Japan and how to have an amazing Japanese dining experience.

Please let me know if any of you have jumped onto this bandwagon as well. They seem to be very popular so I’m sure I will fall in love with it even more when I start using it. I can FINALLY use my fountain pens in a planner (Filofax paper and Moleskine paper and fountain pen ink do NOT get along). Maybe 2016 will be the year when I stick with one planner all year long. Wouldn’t that be crazy? 🙂

Monday Miscellany

Tags

chip kidd, field notes, hobonichi techo, josh ginter, knopf, moleskine, moleskine store web daily, mrporter.com, the newsprint, wonder pens

Hey! This blog was mentioned in the Sept 14 edition of Moleskine Store WebDaily. Apparently it’s a daily roundup of Moleskine references around the internets. If you scroll almost to the bottom of the page you’ll find me. Thank you Moleskine! 🙂

Liz from Wonder Pens mentioned on their blog this article from The Newsprint in which Josh Ginter chronicles one year of his journaling efforts. And it is quite the effort. I really enjoyed how he integrated his analog efforts with a digital repository so the content is searchable. He is a devotee of Field Notes and the Hobonichi Techo. And of course, fountain pens.

Ballpoints lack the character and the zeal necessary to keep an inspired journal or diary. The flow of true ink — not the garbage found in a disposable pen — into the fibers of the paper brings the writing a little closer to home. Increasing the passion and decreasing the friction, I believe, is the key to lengthy journal habits. For me, fountain pens do the trick.

And finally tonight here is another article from Mr. Porter discussing the favourite fonts of five graphic designers. I like Blender, the font nominated by Chip Kidd, Associate Art Director of Knopf (the best publishing house in the world). Which one do you like?

Until next post, happy writing!

P.S. Journal Writing Wednesday will not be published this week as I will be travelling. It will return on the 30th.

Moleskine Planner

Tags

broleatherworks, filofax, finsbury, leuchtturm, moleskine, pentel slicci

In January of this year I purchased a Filofax Finsbury in raspberry. I was using it until mid-August. I really love this planner but it is too big for the purse I am currently using. And I thought it was high time for a change. So I purchased an 18 month pocket Moleskine in the weekly format. These have been around for ages and I’ve always liked them. I love the small format and the setup is the same as in my Finsbury: week on the left with a ruled page on the right for notes and lists.

I thought about a cover for it and thought it might fit into my BroLeatherWorks notebook cover, and it did. I have been wanting to use this cover since I got it in September 2013 for my birthday. It’s a perfect fit.

I swapped out the heavy Vade Mecum charm for a little bird which I think suits it better.

I used a file folder I had made and stuck on some inspirational stickers. I also added a Leuchtturm pen loop, in red to match the red beads on the outside of the leather holder. It holds a black 0.4 mm Pentel Slicci.

The other side of the folder holds my sticky notes, a paper clip and a small book of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which I carry with me always. I also put a bird sticker on the front of the Moleskine planner, in keeping with the theme that seemed to be developing.

One page is devoted to each month. This makes for a very small space to write in appointments; I would prefer a month on two pages. But there is always the weeks section if these squares get full. I use a magnetic bookmark to mark the current month. I also used masking stickers to differentiate between months along the top.

The all too familiar week on one page layout. Over the years I have found this layout works best for me. I like to make lists and the ruled right page is perfect for that. Again, I use a magnetic bookmark to mark the current week.

The back folder holds page flags and another paper clip.

These are some of the fun stickers that come with the Moleskine, in the back pocket. I couldn’t figure out why you would need to remind yourself to blow dry your hair (the red hair dryer sticker) until my friend pointed out that would indicate hair appointment. D’oh! Of course it does.

So this will suit me fine, until Jan 2016. I don’t have a very busy life. The most complicated thing I have to keep track of are chiropractic and massage appointments for me and my husband. I usually book those well in advance so we can get the times we want, and the monthly spread is where I can see them all at once. The tiny squares are getting to me a little bit so I have ordered another planner that has the monthly pages over two pages instead of one. I ordered it this weekend and will write about it when it arrives. Excited! But for the next four months it will be me and my Moleskine. 🙂

Monday Miscellany

Tags

blonde on a budget, grammarly blog, moleskine, nitrocats, planet millie

Here’s a great blog post about the allure of Moleskines: I’ve become a bit of a Moleskine whore, by Saeed Faridzadeh on his blog NitroCats. Love this quote:

It’s hard to fully describe how it feels to write an idea down on paper, then scribble a note off to the side, followed by an arrow pointing to another idea you had further up the page, with an asterisk letting you know there is a note further down the page. But this freedom to allow my pen to go anywhere on the page helps with my creative process.

Grammarly shows us 5 Things You Can Do to Inspire Your Writing. Stephen King gives his advice – love! And a few others. Great ideas.

And here’s something really different and off topic really, courtesy of Planet Millie: The Year I Embraced Minimalism and Completed a Yearlong Shopping Ban. It’s a long read but a good one. She realized she was consuming for the sake of consuming, something I think most of us are guilty of, and she did something about it. Inspiring.

Until next post, happy writing!

Scottsdale Pen and Knife, Part 1

Tags

clairefontaine, conklin, mark twain, moleskine, montblanc, monteverde artista clear demonstrator, pilot plumix, platinum preppy, quo vadis, rhodia, scottsdale pen and knife, visconti, visconti declaration of independence, visconti divina, visconti traveling ink pot

When I was on holiday in Phoenix recently my sister and I visited Scottsdale Pen and Knife. We had a great visit with Jay Sadow, one of the shop owners, along with his wife Karen. Click here for their beautiful web site and here for their excellent blog. And don’t miss the video; it shows lots more of the store than my few photos.

Look at that huge pen in the window!

This is what you see as you walk in the door. It’s a small but mighty shop. Beautiful Rhodia spinner that took my eye.

Mr. Sadow had a fantastic variety of pens, accessories and notebooks, including a pricey Montblanc Writer’s Edition Imperial Dragon 3 Piece Pen Set. We saw the box, straight from the factory, unopened. He explained if one is going to invest in such an item, one wants to be sure no other hands have touched it. Imagine knowing you are the first to break the seal and expose the wonder of such beauties to the air, for the very first time. It’s that kind of sensitivity to pen collecting that makes Scottsdale Pen and Knife a very special place to shop.

This beautiful Visconti display case is to the immediate left when you enter. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Jacques de Molay pen advertised in the poster; I’ve never seen it before. So beautiful. And the Viscontis in the case weren’t bad to look at either! In the foreground you can see the beautiful blue and brown Divinas.

Oh the famous Declaration of Independence Fountain Pen. Such a breathtaking set. And on the top shelf you can see the Visconti Traveling Ink Pot – very tempting!

Here’s a better picture of the ink pot. And in behind you can see the excellent display of notebooks, from Moleskine to Quo Vadis to Clairefontaine.

And this is the view from the other side of the shop.

For a while we had the shop to ourselves and enjoyed a lively discussion with Mr. Sadow. I am so grateful that he let me take a few photos. (Any mistakes there might be as to the pens I describe in the cases or indeed in the text of this post are mine alone.) I also learned from him that Mark Twain used a Conklin and was in fact a spokesperson for the brand in 1898. I felt my resolve falter when I saw the Conklin Crescent Filler Chased Rose Gold fountain pen.

I prefer it to ten other fountain pens, because it carries its filler in its own stomach, and I can not mislay even by art or intention. Also, I prefer it because it is a profanity saver; it cannot roll off the desk.

I told him what I was looking for and how much I wanted to spend and he showed me a few beautiful examples. In the end I chose the Monteverde Artista Clear Demonstrator with a medium nib; a folding 10x magnifier (on the advice of SBRE Brown); a Pilot Plumix in purple; two Platinum Preppy pens, in blue and green; another box of Pilot Mixable Colour cartridges; and an orange leather Rhodia notebook holder with notebook included, graph style.

I will elaborate on each of these items in Part 2.

I loved all of the displays, especially the Visconti. A wonderful morning spent in the company of pens, ink, and paper, and wonderful people to share it with. If you are in Phoenix and in the Scottsdale area do drop in and say hello. You’ll be glad you did.