(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
Clairefontaine is a paper brand from France that you'll be hard-pressed to miss if you spend any time at all in the stationery community. Their paper products are top-notch and fairly priced, making them great entry points for trying out exceptional paper that handle all sorts of writing instruments with relative ease.
The Triomphe A5 notebook features the great 90gsm paper on the inside with a stark, classy white and gold-leaf cover. The notebook has 50 sheets of paper inside with zero additional front or end matter. The front inside cover is blank outside of a small logo that is just a shade or two different than the color of the cover, making it blend in. The back inside cover has some information about the brand and notebook specifications, but that's all. No organization blocks or admin folders in this notebook — just glorious, beautiful bright white paper.
The front cover of the notebook is really quite pretty. The Triomphe name is bold, debossed and inlayed with gold-leaf foil, along with a rectangle that outlines the outer edges of the cover. It definitely grabs your attention because it's bold and not something you see on notebooks often. There's also a smaller Clairefontaine logo on the front, but the color is faded so that it takes a distant back-seat to the gold-leaf design. The back cover has a single Clairefontaine logo, debossed and inlayed with gold-leaf foil, along with a standard name and barcode block, which is printed on the notebook directly. This isn't a sticker that you can peel off after you unwrap the notebook.
The notebook is thread-bound and feels great to open and close. I have no doubts that this binding will still be in good shape after spending the time with it to fill all 50 pages. The notebook doesn't like to lay open when it's new, but some gentle breaking-in solves that problem quickly. After using the first few pages, the notebook easily lays flat on its own.
The paper is Clairefontaine's standard fare — 90gsm acid-free bright white paper. The corners are rounded off on both the covers and the pages, making it less likely to get caught on things when taking it in or out of bags or pockets. The version of the notebook I have is a blank paper, which is somewhat rare for Clairefontaine. In most cases, Clairefontaine is only available in lined paper, with only a few blank or grid options in only some of their product lines. The blank paper is a nice change of pace, and I've taken to keeping a sheet of lined paper tucked into the notebook so I have a line guide when writing. Or, if I want to do something more free-form, I can put the guide away and just use the blank page as I see fit.
The paper in this notebook (and any Clairefontaine paper product) is so nice to use. It may not be the best or the favorite paper of everyone, but it's a good, solid option that handles many kinds of writing instruments without any hiccups. For fountain pens, rollerballs, gel pens, ballpoints, and pencils, it's a fantastic experience. The paper is silky smooth with just a small amount of feedback to make handling your writing instrument easier. The paper is also really consistent, meaning there aren't random spots where ink behaves differently. It's just a really good paper, and you should absolutely try some if you haven't had the pleasure.
Being 90gsm, it's a tiny bit thicker than comparable brands, but it doesn't feel any thicker in use. Inks don't show through easily, so using both sides of the sheet is easy unless you're using excessively wet or wide nibs that lay down ink like a wet mop.
Using Clairefontaine paper, and this particular notebook, is a great sensory experience, and it really makes your writing instruments shine. It offers an ideal environment for using the pens and pencils that are so special to us. And, at $12 for a notebook (or cheaper if they're on sale), it doesn't break the bank either.
My only complaint about this notebook applies to Clairefontaine in general: give us more options for the ruling! If Clairefontaine had blank, lined, graph, dot options for all of their most popular notebook lines, they'd be so much more popular. Since they mostly standardize on wide lined ruling, that instantly turns some people away, and that's a shame. I'm hoping some day they'll see the light and add more options to their lineup! Until then, I'll make due with what they already have since lined isn't that bad and blank is also fun to use from time to time.
(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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