Myke and I had an amazing time at Field Notes HQ on Friday and owe a huge thanks to Jim Coudal, Bryan Bedell, and everyone who made it to the event. Our interview with Jim and Bryan will appear in the podcast feed on Wednesday, and Kickstarter backers will receive the video version on the same day.
I miss you already Chicago!
I’m always excited when two of my favorite brands collaborate on a product, and this one is right up there with the best I’ve seen. We are talking peanut butter and chocolate levels of goodness here.
Field Notes, one of the premier notebook makers on the planet collaborated with Bellroy, the Australian leather goods and accessory maker, to release the Everyday Inspiration, a compact leather memo book cover.
Field Notes launched a now-discontinued leather cover of their own in 2013 called the Gentlemans Memo Book Cover. I’m not sure what sales were like, but the product was pulled in early 2016. Anecdotally, I don’t recall ever seeing one in the wild, and I never owned one myself.
Bellroy launched their own Notebook Cover Mini in late 2016 and it was met with great feedback. In fact, it is currently available at Bellroy in five different leather colors. On top of that, it is the exact same cover as the Everyday Inspiration, minus a few special Field Notes Brand tweaks.
From the outside, the Everyday Inspiration is pure Bellroy. It is is clean with minimal stitching, with only a small stamped Bellroy owl logo on the entirety of the exterior. The interior is equally as clean, with the added Bellroy/Field Notes name stamping inside the front cover.
The inside also features an orange backing on the grey leather, which I wholeheartedly approve of. The large interior flaps (or pockets) where the notebook cover slides in are easily accessible with rounded corners and stitching only on two-thirds of the edge for easy in and out access.
Credit and ID cards have two sneaky interior pockets under the inside front flap as well, allowing the Everyday Inspiration to be used as an all-in-one wallet as well. Business cards stick out a bit, but the edge lands before the middle fold to keep them from getting damaged.
As with nearly every pocket notebook cover I have tried, space for a pen is at a premium, or non-existent. I’m completely ok with this because I’d rather carry a pen I want to use elsewhere on my person than sacrifice the pen quality just because it fits the cover. The Everyday Inspiration is no exception. You can fit a pen inside the fold, but I don’t plan on ever doing that.
Also included with the cover are three Bellroy-branded Field Notes memo books that looks fantastic. Plus, a single notebook in the case is able to be secured with thin magnets inside the front and back cover. They are so stealth I had no idea they were there when I first opened the package and was loading up the cover.
$85 is an excellent price point for a cover of this quality. Every detail is thoughtfully considered and executed perfectly. I’m a fan of what Field Notes and Bellroy have collaborated on with the Everyday Inspiration and I hope they can find a way to work together again in the future.
(Bellroy provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
Summer is nearly here, all the plants are turning green and blooming, and there's an abundance of troublesome pollen in the air and on our cars. Before we know it, it will be the middle of the summer and we'll be begging for cooler weather. Given that information, I'm a little perplexed as to why I chose to open up the Shenandoah Field Notes over something more bright and cheery. My only excuse is that these covers are gorgeous and I can't get enough of them.
The Field Notes Shenandoah edition was released last Fall, and it's quickly become one of my personal favorites. After I used up my first pack, I ordered some more to keep on hand. They're good notebooks, and I've really enjoyed using mine.
Being a Colors edition, the specifics are a tad different than the standard offering.
The Shenandoah edition was printed in September 2015 in a run of 40,000 3-packs. The three books each feature a popular tree found in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia: the Red Maple, Sweet Birch, and Chestnut Oak. The back of each notebook features a drawing of the leaf and a short description of the tree. Each notebook has a unique color scheme, which features a different color for the outside and inside of the cover.
The paper inside the notebooks are all grid pattern, and the paper is Finch 60# instead of the standard 50# found in their standard notebooks. Of course, it's the standard 3.5" x 5.5" size with 48 pages per book for a price of $9.95. No surprises there.
One of the first things that caught my attention about this edition was the paper they used for the insides. 60# weight, to be exact. The normal Field Notes books use 50#, which doesn't do well with fountain pens or wet liquid rollerballs (like a Retro 51 Tornado or Pilot Precise). I was excited to give it a try since I haven't had any direct experience with this paper before.
Long story short? It performs better than the standard Field Notes paper. But, if you dislike show-through, it will really disappoint you. I happen to really hate show-through, so I've relegated these notebooks for gel pen use only. Still, I wasn't hoping for too much with these notebooks because they're so utilitarian and easy to use with anything that you have on hand. It's part of the appeal for me.
Fine-tipped fountain pens will work well enough on the paper, but wetter, larger pens will destroy the paper. That being said, it's a smooth paper that's a joy to use. I just prefer using non-fountain pens with it. I had a slight hope that this would be a great fountain pen paper, but those hopes were dashed after I turned over the page I was testing on. On the other hand, there isn't a lot of feathering with most nibs/inks I tried, so that's a positive.
Bottom line, this paper can handle fountain pens, but it's not optimal. There are much better options out there in the 3.5" x 5.5" category.
I'm fairly picky about which Field Notes editions I like, and the Shenandoah edition really hit the sweet spot for me. They're gorgeous notebooks, the paper inside is a step above the normal books, and they use a grid pattern paper. My favorite color of the three is Sweet Birch. Honestly, if I could buy 3-packs of Sweet Birch, I would jump all over it.
You can still pick up the Shenandoah edition at several retail locations and online stores. I purchased a pack from Field Notes first and JetPens later.
