Kokuyo Campus Business A5 Notebook Review

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

The Kokuyo Campus Business 105BT-DB A5 notebook is easy to miss based on the name alone, but underneath the non-descriptive number/letter name is a fantastic little notebook. There are so many different A5 notebooks to choose from; it's basically one of the most popular notebook sizes available, and for good reason. It's large enough to write comfortably, but small enough to easily transport and carry around. Why choose this notebook over another? Well, like most things, it comes down to personal preference.

To me, one of the big distinguishing factors of this notebook is the cover and binding. it's a flimsy, flexible cover and a blued binding that gives the notebook more of a permanent journal feel over a spiral-bound notebook for school notes. It's still fairly economical, though. At just over $3, it's a great value for the level of quality. The glue binding feels strong, but also pliable enough to allow the notebook to easily stay flat when open.

The cover is a dark blue with white text, but there's also a subtle gray honeycomb pattern all over the cover. I really like this extra visual texture on an otherwise "all business" notebook.

Inside the covers, there's 50 sheets of Kokuyo's lovely 70gsm paper. The paper is lined (30 lines per page), but there are also dots along the lines to provide some guidance for separating things horizontally. The paper has a silky smooth coating that makes most pens glide across the surface, but some pens/inks have trouble getting enough "grip" to make the ink flow freely. In my testing, I've only had issues with a 1.5mm stub nib and the Schmidt P8126 rollerball refill. The rollerball seems to lack the amount of friction required to rotate the microscopic ball that distributes the ink on the page. Once it's moving, it's not bad, but it does take a little scribbling to make it start. Aside from that, I really love using this paper with all manner of writing instruments (provided they agree with the paper coating).

Show-through on the back of the sheet is fairly prominent with fountain pen inks, but not so bad with everything else. This is typical and expected for the paper weight (70gsm) but something you should consider if you mostly use large fountain pen nibs or anything else that lays down a lot of ink compared to a traditional fine fountain pen or gel ink refill.

This notebook is utilitarian on both the outside and inside. There's some normal branding and retail markings on the exterior covers, but the inside covers are bare (aside from a few diagrams with suggestions for using the dots system). No name labels or anything; the notebook just gets right to business with the first page. The pages aren't numbered, but there is a convenient spot in the top outer corner of each page for the date.

The Kokuyo Campus Business A5 notebook is a no-frills workhorse of a notebook. I've really enjoyed using it over the past several weeks. The size is perfect and the flexible covers make it comfortable to carry and handle. While it's not a great choice for writing in environments where you don't have a hard surface to work on, it's an excellent choice for notes and journaling as long as you have a desk or table to work from. The silky smooth paper is enjoyable and the unique Kokuyo dots/lines paper layout is useful. At $3.30 a notebook, they're a great option for stocking up on this handy size notebook.

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

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The Sketchnote Ideabook: 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 Sketchnote Ideabook is made by AirshipNotebooks.com for Mike Rohde, who wrote two books (The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook) on how to take notes using the Sketchnote method.

The notebook is A5 size (5.8" x 8.3") with a polyurethane hardcover in gray. The cover is soft to the touch and adorned with icons, Sketchnote and Airship branding, and the "Ideas Not Art" logo.

It has a band closure in teal, two book ribbons (one teal, one orange), and a back cover pocket.

The 160 gsm blank paper (128 pages) is almost as thick as card stock. The pages are sewn with a lay-flat binding and the corners are rounded. The last four pages are perforated. The first two have large boxes for icon drawing reference, the third has small boxes, and the last is blank to use as a blotter. I forgot to take pictures of these pages, but you can see them on the Ideabook website.

The front and back end pages contain a brief introduction to the Sketchnote method, including the five basic elements of drawing and Sketchnoting patterns. Having easy access to these instructions is helpful.

The design of the "This Book Belongs To" page isn't appealing, with the "Reward for Return" (as if) and the drawing of Mike Rohde. Sorry, Mike. I'm sure you're a great guy, but I don't really want your likeness in my notebook.

Although the paper is thick and smooth, it's not meant for fountain pens. In my tests with eleven pens and inks, I found that, although the ink didn't bleed through much, it did feather.

Ink swabbing also demonstrated that this paper isn't meant for fountain pens. The colors of the eight inks I tested are crisp, but the paper absorbs the ink and doesn't exhibit any sheen or shading. Plus, the inks bled through slightly, and the paper puckers. Although the Ideabook website says, "You'll love this paper," I don't love it--not for fountain pens, anyway.

I tested a variety of non-fountain pens. The paper handled them well, with the exception of the Sharpie Magnum, but no one expects mega-Sharpies not to bleed. The fine point Sharpie didn't bleed through at all.

I used my Lamy 2000 (fine nib) inked with Iroshizuku Kiri-Same to try my hand at Sketchnoting. First, I practiced the five basic elements of drawing.

Then I watched a YouTube video by DAS Bookbinding on how to case bind a hand-sewn book. For the first two-page spread, I used the Radial Notetaking method. My pages turned out pretty messy, and I had to stop the video several times to write down the details I wanted. The Sketchnote method didn't hinder me. Rather, the instructions in the video were given too quickly for me to keep up. During lulls in the video, I added little pictures of the tools required and utilized some of the recommended drawing methods.

I varied my note taking methods during the course of the video. On my third page, I used the Vertical Notes method.

For the fourth page I used the Path Notetaking method.

I've always been a visual notetaker. I doodled in the margins while taking notes in school, but I never thought to incorporate doodles into the note taking itself. The Sketchnote method combines note taking with simple drawings to create a visual result. This is especially helpful when you're trying to retain information because drawing and writing create pathways to your brain.

I am, however, very much tied to words, and the Sketchnote method emphasizes writing only the main points, not all the details. I can't take notes that way. I need the details, such as the measuring formulas given in the video I watched. With practice I think I could let go of writing full sentences and focus more on using key words and drawings. I'm going to continue using my Ideabook while watching bookbinding videos to practice sketchnoting. But I will switch to a ballpoint pen or pencil instead of a fountain pen.

You can purchase the Sketchnote Ideabook at Airship Notebooks for $24.00 plus shipping.

(Airship Notebooks provided this notebook free of charge for Pen Addict to review. This post also contains Amazon affiliate links.)

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Roterfaden A5 Notebook Review

My last review was for the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter, a super great notebook cover system that utilizes clips instead of elastic bands or pockets to keep notebooks in place. Naturally, Roterfaden has their own line of notebooks that are made to be used with this cover.

The Roterfaden notebooks are very minimalist. The cover is thin kraft cardstock. The brand is stamped onto the front, as well as an abbreviated infographic of notebook specs. The binding is sewn with red thread (in keeping with the brand name). There is no spine to cover the stitching--it's an open edge that facilitates in the notebooks' main feature: it lays perfectly flat on every page, with no training necessary. It does this very well. With no thick cover and no spine, it feels more like writing on a pad of paper than in a notebook. Frankly, it takes some getting used to.

While there are a lot of benefits to this notebook's structure, it does feel a little flimsy. The kraft cover is not much thicker than printer paper, and the loose binding feels like it's going to fall apart (it hasn't). It doesn't feel like a substantial book. Of course, it's not meant to be used alone. It's supposed to be inserted into the Taschenbegleiter with several of its siblings--and that becomes its actual cover. It does work well when used with the Taschenbegleiter, and I think it would work okay in an elastic system, too, but it would likely not work in a notebook cover where the insert cover needs to be slid into a pocket. It isn't quite sturdy enough to hang on by one cover.

Between the covers are 84 pages of very decent paper. It is a cream color, and this one has a dot grid pattern. Lined and blank are also sometimes available. The paper handles all inks very well with minimal showthrough, and no feathering or bleeding. My Sharpie has run dry, so it didn't bleed through as much as it would have--you can see in the picture that even the dry ink did get through a bit. A fully-loaded Sharpie would do what it normally does to paper: annihilation.

This is a good notebook that serves its purpose well. It works for what it was designed to do, though it doesn't work for me outside of its intended purpose. That is, I wouldn't use this notebook without a sturdy cover system like the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter. My biggest issue with this product is the price. $14.50 for an insert is...well, it's too much. It's good paper, and nicely bound, but it's also possible to find A5 notebooks that fit these specs for a third of that price. Buying these, especially in triplicate, as refills is not very cost effective. It's not a bad notebook, and if you like matching brands, it might be worth it, but it hasn't won me over.

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

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