Monday, July 22, 2013

Field Notes notebooks


These little notebooks are definitely one of the reasons I would love to go to the United States! As they are a smaller American-based company, it is quite hard to get them here in Europe, Luckilly the Internet solves everything, and you can buy them from a lot of different American online shops, including their own Field Notes webshop!


But before I start talking about these notebooks, I would like to point out that I received these products for free, so I could write a review about them. Nevertheless, I will make an honest and detailed review, just like all of my other reviews!


My review unit came with a three pack of mixed (lines, grid, blank) classic staple-bound notebooks, a pack of pens, a pack of pencils (6 of each, but I took one of both out already) and some little gadgets (a rubber band and a button)


Now for the notebooks themselves. As soon as I received them, I fell in love with the pure, simple design, everything looks very clean and simple, and I think it really shows that good products don't need much decoration to look good!
They put a lot of effort in the small details, like the production details, printed in the back of every notebook. This makes it a lot easier for me to give some specs about the notebooks: They have an 80# brown paper cover, 50# inner paper (48 pages) printed with light brown soy-based ink lines and grids, they even include the printing machines they used, and how they rounded the corners!

The soft cardboard covers obviously aren't as strong as a hard cover, so it will become worn after a while. But they are of course easier to tuck away in your pocket, imagine putting a hardcover notebook in the back-pocket of a jeans: not comfortable!


To me, it feels like it all fits perfectly. They promote it as an EDC notebook that you can fill up on the go, with things you need to remember. And they designed it to be perfect for that use! It is small, so it fits your jeans pocket perfectly, the paper is a little rougher, so it is ideal for pen and pencil (which are  more convenient than a fountain pen when you are on the go!) They even printed a ruler on the cardboard back of the notebook, so you can take small measurements when you need to. It is totally designed to be functional

a little bleedtrough
But how does it perform? Some people think that the paper is too thin and too rough to be used with a fountain pen, but as I said before, that's not what it's meant for! I tried it out with some fountain pens, mostly M nibbed, wet writing pens. And I actually didn't have any trouble with the paper, although it does bleed trough the page just a little bit, and there is obviously some see-trough! But even then I didn't find it to interfere with the writing on the other side. I think it performed much better than some Moleskine notebooks that I used before. And it is definitely usable with fountain pens. But of course it's perfect for ballpoint pens and pencils, as the paper isn't super-smooth, the ink doesn't smear, and the graphite line is darker (because the rougher paper 'grinds off' more graphite when writing!)


Another thing I like very much about this notebook, are the light brown lines and grids, they are visible at first, but they are so light that they are almost not noticeable anymore when you wrote something over it!

Now for the pens and pencils that came with it...

The ballpoint pens are pretty basic BIC pens, the model appears to be called 'clic' but I never saw them before. They performed better than I expected, they write pretty smooth, and the company logo and website are neatly printed on the side.



The pencils: Are made from Californian Cedar wood, they are kept as natural as possible (they are unlaquered, printed with non-toxic ink, recyclable aluminum ferrule and bio-degradable eraser!) The wood is easy to sharpen and the graphite core is quite break-resistant. Again, like with the notebooks, the technical details about the pencil are printed on the pencil itself, I personally think this looks very cool!





I love these notebooks already, I use them everyday, as they are small enough to be carried in the back pocket of my jeans without any trouble. The cardboard cover will bend and become worn after a while but I think that can only make 'em look better! They are very reasonably priced, at about 8 Euros/ 9.95 USDollars per three-pack (even the limited editions!) The pens are 5.95 USDollars for a six-pack and the pencils are 4.95 for a six-pack.

Oh, and also check out their other products and colors-subscription: they do a new limited edition every three months, and they are always very popular (the last edition sold out in under a week!)



5 comments:

  1. Great review, and your photos look excellent, too!

    I fill one of these a week -- careful, they are additive! :)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! And yes, they are indeed very addictive, I just love the overall look and feel of them!

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  2. Great blog – we have a particular affection for a good pencil case over here at Ryman (http://www.ryman.co.uk/). Right now, we’re running a competition asking members of our blog community to show us what’s in their pencil cases via Instagram, using the hashtag #pencilcasepics. We would love to see you get involved! Check out our blog at blog.ryman.co.uk - we'd be happy to connect with you.

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  3. Just thought I'd point some typos,you said that was ok at the start right?

    "And they designed it to be perfect for that use! It is small, so it fits your yeans pocket perfectly,"
    yeans ~ jeans

    "allthough it does bleed trough the page just a little bit, and there is obviously some seetrough!"
    allthough ~ although
    seetrough ~ see-through

    Just trying to be helpful. Feel free to delete this after fixing

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    Replies
    1. No I won't delete this, people can see that I still make mistakes, and I appreciate it when someone points them out to me! So thank you very much for helping me!

      Delete