Notes on notebooks: my journal preferences

I was catching up on my RSS feed and saw this post from The Pen Addict. In it, Brad Dowdy mentions some updates to his Analog Defaults page. That’s a cool idea, so I set one up, too. I also thought this would be a good excuse for me to write about notebook preferences for journalling.

As long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed the act of putting pen to paper. As a kid, I never looked forward to the end of summer — but I loved shopping for school supplies. Even cheap notebooks felt as though they held infinite possibilities. In grade school, I realized that writing out snippets of my day helped prevent boredom-induced insanity. I’ve kept up the journalling habit ever since.

For me, writing in a journal is therapeutic and almost meditative. When I’m anxious or stressed about something, writing through those feelings helps me deal with them. Even when I’m at a baseline, I’m always less stressed after having written. Journalling also helps me with task management. There are always a zillion things to do, but there’s only one thing I should be doing right now. Enumerating tasks focuses me and helps me break a hairy task into bite sized bits. Same goes for problem solving. The solution to a tough problem will often appear to me before I’m fully done writing out why I’m stumped. Even if that’s not the case, putting the problem on a page crystallizes it for me. That then helps me work through the challenges later.

Aside from those benefits, I also enjoy journalling as a hobby. It’s an excuse to buy notebooks, pens, and inks that are all fun to play with. Today, I want to focus on the notebook part. As with anything, there are more details the closer you look. Finding the details I care about is part of the fun. With that, here’s what I care most about in a notebook for journalling, in order of importance.

• First off, it needs to be A5 sized. This size is easy to throw in a backpack, it doesn’t take up too much room on a desk, but pages are still comfortable to write on. Half US letter size is also acceptable, but I really prefer the wider page of an A5.
• The paper needs to be smooth, thick, and work well with fountain pens. Around 90 gsm is my sweet spot. I slightly prefer paper in ivory, but I’m not too fussy there. I adore gliding a well-tuned fountain pen nib across extra smooth paper.
• A dot grid pattern is a must. I’m not sure when dot grid started being a thing, but the first one I have is from late 2010. They became more popular when bullet journalling took off, but I’m not doing that. The pattern is more subtle than lines or grids. A good dot grid almost fades away once a page is full, but still helps you write in a straight line in either direction. A 5 mm dot spacing works well for my writing size.
• I need the binding to be sewn or stitched. Thread and glue is also OK, but it’s not my favourite. I’ve had glue-only bindings disintegrate over time, and staples (even those in higher quality books) have rusted. Sewn bindings also usually open flatter, which is nicer to write on.
• I want the pages I write on to not be perforated. I’m OK with some perforated pages at the end of the book, but I won’t use them for journalling. Even though most perforations still take some effort to detach, the impermanent feeling they lend to the paper feels bad to me. They can be useful for ink testing, however.
• I like a soft cover. Hard covers feel nice, but they’re more bulky and don’t open as flat. They also take up more storage space. My journal doesn’t travel much, and my preferred soft covers are plenty robust.
• A few front-matter pages are handy. I can do this myself, but I value having some space specifically for adding meta-details. They’re good for noting what pens/inks were used throughout the journal, and for an index of pages where key events happened.
• It’s nice if there are pre-printed page numbers. Again, this is something I can easily do, but it’s nice if I don’t have to.

There are many other notebook features to comment on, but these are the core ones for me. Everyone’s going to value things differently. I could take or leave things like bookmark ribbons, back pockets, or elastic closures.

Based on all that, my current favourite notebook is the Clairefontaine My.Essential notebook (or “My. essential*” as per the first page). Here’s a slightly less French link from the place I usually buy them. JetPens has a nice image gallery of the book, though they only seem to have the lined version.

Odd naming aside, this notebook checks every box for me. It comes in A5 and dot grid. The paper is silky smooth, 90 gsm, and a pleasant ivory colour. It handles even my wettest fountain pens better than any other paper I’ve tried. The cover is sturdy but flexible card stock, and it has a stitched binding. The pages are numbered, and there are 8 front-matter pages at the start.

I say “current favourite” above because everything is a trade-off, and I’ve certainly not tested all the notebooks out there. A very close runner up is the Rhodia Rhodiarama Softcover Webnotebook. Clairefontaine bought Rhodia in 1997, so the 90 gsm paper in this book is the same as in the My.Essential. It doesn’t have perforated pages, so that’s a plus… but there are no front-matter pages or page numbering. It also has a soft synthetic leather cover that I don’t prefer.

Another option I’ve used and liked is the Leuchtturm1917 Notebook Classic in soft cover and dot grid. It also has front-matter pages and numbered pages. The paper is nice, but 80 gsm and more textured than the Clairefontaine stuff. It still works very well with fountain pens, but there’s more show-through. This was the first generally available option for dot grid paper that I could find, and it’s still a solid choice.

The MIDORI MD Notebook is also worth looking at. It’s a minimalist notebook that comes in an A5 dot grid. The paper is 80 gsm, but is shockingly nice to write on. It’s also slightly textured. I’m mixed on the outer threaded binding, though. It allows the book to open flat extremely easily… but I really don’t love having that gauze-looking stuff on the outside. This notebook is light on features, but that’s on purpose. The paper alone makes it worth checking out.

Also, I should mention Moleskine here because it’s still often considered a premium notebook brand. They do offer a soft cover dot grid book that checks off a good chunk of my list, but the paper in these is 70 gsm. It’s fine for pencils or ballpoint pens, but not for anything else. I don’t recommend them, and I think most people would be better served by other options.

Of course, the preferences I’ve listed here are for my journalling notebook. Because I’m always lusting after new stationery, I usually have 2–3 other notebooks or notepads on the go. I mostly take meeting notes digitally using Bear, but I also have “scratch notebooks” for meeting prep, mockup sketching, or just playing with ink. Right now I have a Schut sketchpad (with gloriously craggily textured 180 gsm paper) and a Canson sketch book (with more straightforward 100 gsm paper that’s great for things like glitter inks) within reach.

Anyway, this was supposed to just be an excuse to set up my Analogue Defaults page, but it got slightly out of hand. I plan to write a bit more about pens and inks as well in the future.

1. I originally wrote “cheap scribblers” here. Then it occurred to me that “scribbler” isn’t a term I’ve heard outside of Atlantic Canada. Here’s a definition of “scribbler” from A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. I also found a fascinating page from McGill that maps usage over time and through different provinces (click the header above the linked text to see the tabular data). We also often used the French term “cahier” to refer to these.
2. Plus, if you’re using those things in a business context, it’s perfectly reasonable to expense them!
3. It was a medium notebook (half letter size) from Writersblok. I found this review of their small size from 2009. The paper wasn’t great, but I was immediately smitten with the pattern. After I worked through my first batch, I wasn’t able to find more. I then found that Leuchtturm1917 offered a dot grid notebook, which was a large step up.
4. DeSerres is from Québec, after all.