The Best Paper Notebooks and Journals, Tested and Reviewed (2024): Leuchttherm, Moleskine, Midori

Is determination specified a happening arsenic the champion notebook? Probably not. Notebooks are not a one-size-fits each commodity. If nary of these rather tilt your pen, present are immoderate wide things to look for successful a insubstantial notebook.

Paper quality: High-quality insubstantial volition amended your penning experience. That said, what constitutes high-quality insubstantial depends a batch connected your penning device. For example, dense ink pens, similar fountain pens, volition necessitate thicker insubstantial to debar ghosting (when the ink soaks through), portion coarser insubstantial mightiness beryllium amended for sketching with a brushed pencil. (Much of this depends connected idiosyncratic preference, too.) If you’re chiefly jotting notes with a ballpoint pen, beauteous overmuch immoderate insubstantial volition work.

Size and shape: For writing, I similar vertically-oriented notebooks, astir A5 shape, but for sketching and watercolors I similar landscape-oriented notebooks. I cognize radical who similar the nonstop opposite. You'll person to find retired what signifier you like, but erstwhile you bash you tin constrictive the tract considerably. Also support successful caput that if you're carrying a notebook astir each day, value matters. Everyone has their ain saccharine spot betwixt leafage count, weight, and size. You'll person to experimentation to find what works for you.

Binding style: This mightiness look obscure, but however a notebook lies erstwhile it is unfastened is precise important, and however a notebook lies is mostly determined by the binding. For example, immoderate radical (especially left-handed writers) emotion lay-flat notebooks due to the fact that they prevarication wholly flat, making them easier to constitute in. Other radical similar spiral binding due to the fact that you tin fold the full notebook successful half, and it's casual to teardrop retired pages. Perfect-bound notebooks (the astir communal binding, deliberation Moleskine) are overmuch much sturdy than spiral bound but don't prevarication flat, and it's hard to teardrop retired pages.

Page ruling: There are 4 communal types of ruling: lined, dotted, grid, and none. The ruling is mostly a substance of taste, though I find dot grid indispensable for immoderate task planning, particularly thing involving measurements (like woodworking projects, for instance), truthful I ever person a dot grid notebook around. Dot grid is besides a fashionable prime for keeping a slug journal.

Reusability: I've travel to deliberation of notebooks arsenic 2 parts: the cover, and the pages. Notebooks with hard covers, similar our apical prime Leuchtturm1917, harvester some successful a azygous package, wherever softcover notebooks, similar Field Notes oregon Moleskine Cahier notebooks, lend themselves to being slipped into an further cover. What I similar astir keeping the 2 things abstracted is that my notebook ever looks the same. The leather screen ne'er changes, I conscionable support inserting caller notebooks inside. There are covers for Leuchtturm notebooks, truthful you tin bash some if you want, but I find this makes the notebooks alternatively heavy.