Notebook Review: Banditapple Carnet

I first read about Banditapple Carnet notebooks in June when my friend Julie wrote a review in her blog. Out of curiosity, I sent an email to Banditapple's creator and owner, Arnie Kim, to ask for sample products to review on the blog. Three months of waiting and chasing the guys at our Post Office, I received the lovely notebooks that Arnie sent to me. 

Banditapple Carnet notebooks are sold by its creator and owner, Arnie Kim from Seoul, South Korea, though they are all hand-made in Vietnam. Arnie said that his notebooks are now available in stationery stores not only in South Korea, but also in selected stores in Japan.

The notebooks come in three sizes (Peewee, Handy, and Tablet) and two cover colors (Hanoi Red and Saigon Black). All Banditapple Carnet notebook sizes are available in either blank or ruled paper with 64 pages of acid-free, 80gsm off-white paperstock. The cover used on the notebooks is plain cardstock which makes them look very simple, and almost anonymous and unbranded. But I like that. I'm also glad that Arnie sent me samples of all available notebook sizes and covers, and that he sent me notebooks with both blank and ruled pages.

Peewee in Saigon Black cover with my first generation pink Lamy Safari.

Peewee is the smallest among the three available notebook sizes of Banditapple Carnet. It measures 3.5 x 5.5 inches, sized like a pocket Clairefontaine notebook, Venzi, or Field Notes. The photo below shows the Peewee on top, and all the notebooks I mentioned underneath it. All notebooks have the same dimensions, they just differ in either their binding (stapled or stitched) or corner cuts. Since I received the Banditapple Carnet notebooks, I've made the Peewee my 'ink diary'. It's the perfect thin, small, black notebook I can carry with me anywhere because it fits in the plastic zipper pocket of my Midori TN. When I need to see how a certain ink behaves in a particular pen, I just pull out my Peewee.

Handy in Saigon Black cover with my yellow Lamy Safari.

Handy, the 'middle' size, measures 4.25 x 8.25 inches. This notebook made me very happy as soon as I saw it. Why? Because it's the same size as my Midori Traveler's Notebook's refills! And what's better, the Banditapple Handy have round page corners.

Banditapple Handy in Hanoi Red cover on top, Midori Traveler's Notebook refill below.

See? Banditapple's Handy fits my Midori TN perfectly!

Tablet in Hanoi Red cover, with my LE orange Lamy Safari.

Tablet, the biggest Banditapple notebook, measures 5.125 x 8.25 inches. It is sized like a large Moleskine or Rhodia Webbie, or as shown below, a soft cover large Venzi notebook. I got a blank Banditapple Tablet, and I may just turn it into a sketch/doodle/calligraphy notebook later.

Banditapple Tablet in Hanoi Red cover on top, soft cover Venzi below.

The other wonderful feature of Banditapple Carnet notebooks is their binding — the pages are stitched — not stapled, not glued, but stitched. A single signature is stitched to the cover, and the notebooks' stitching match the color of their covers.

Neat stitching on spine...

...and on the notebook's pages.

And now, the best part about these wonderful notebooks: the paper. Banditapple uses 80gsm off-white (read: not-so-white), acid-free paper. Dr. Matthias Meckel, blogger at Bleistift, wrote that Arnie spent more than two years to find the right paper for his notebooks. And his efforts paid off. Banditapple Carnet notebooks have one of the best papers I've ever tried with my fountain pens.

Banditapple uses a .25 inch page ruling; top margin of .75 inch, and bottom margin of .625 inch. Ruling has been printed using soy type ink.

The pages have no side margins, though. The ruling extends to the edges of the page spread.

And I saved the best for last: the pen and ink tests on Banditapple's Handy notebook. Because the Handy is a tall notebook, I was able to test a couple of pens on a page, including fountain pens, a rollerball, gelpens, and a permanent marker. I like using different pen types to test a notebook's paper because it shows me instantly how the pens and inks react to it.

Banditapple uses paper that is not smooth and shiny white. But it is very excellent for fountain pen use, especially to very broad and wet nibs such as those on my Esterbrook pens. The Esterbrook LJ and Trans J pens below both have 9968 (firm broad) nibs and I did not see any feathering or bleed at all. Even the badly notorious bleeder called Noodler's Midnight Blue behaved so well on this paper. I also noticed that some ink types even showed better color in Banditapple's paper, like Edelstein Jade and J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis. Drying takes a longer time compared to other paper types, but that is just fine.

All in a page: 21 fountain pens, 1 rollerball, 9 gelpens, 1 permanent marker.

Banditapple paper up close. Ink is  J. Herbin Café des îles. I love the pure, cottony goodness of paper on a close shot like this. And even at a very close view, I just don't see the ink feathering on paper.

This is how the back of the pen and ink test page looks like. Not one of the 21 fountain pens bled or feathered, but the Sharpie permanent marker just had to bleed very badly. But that's how Sharpie behaves on almost all of the paper types I have ever tested.

Lastly, here is the Peewee notebook that I have made into an 'ink diary'. Very cool. I like keeping an 'ink diary' because it's a way of keeping an informal inventory of my inks and pens. And I am very strict with myself that whenever I fill a pen, I have to write down the date, ink type, and pen used so I have an ink/pen reference.

If you need more information about these wonderful notebooks, Arnie Kim's contact details are on his site, http://www.banditapple.com/. Or you can email him using this email address: owner@banditapple.com if you want to discuss notebook orders. You can place orders for his notebooks in bulk and he will gladly give you a good price and a choice of whether to ship by air (faster), or water/surface (slower by 2 weeks, but then, the package gets to you). This is the best way of ordering from Arnie at the moment.

I am not affiliated with Banditapple Company, I am just a very satisfied owner of these wonderful and amazing notebooks.

The Banditapple Carnet notebooks used in this review are from the Banditapple Company through its creator and owner, Arnie Kim. The other notebooks, pens and inks used in this review all belong to my personal collection.

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Notebook Review: Quo Vadis Keith Haring Artist Series

I have a lot of notebooks. I actually have an insane number of them inside my 'notebook cabinet'. While some are from my impulse buys, most of them came from my silent sponsors, as samples for review. I'm fascinated by colorful things, but I have always been fond of plain-covered notebooks. I like using any black-covered ones for journal writing and note taking. I also use a small black notebook for the 'ink diary' that I keep (more on that on the next notebook review). 

When I received the Keith Haring Quo Vadis Habana notebooks that Karen Doherty (Exaclair's USA VP for   Marketing) sent to me a few months ago, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. Late last month, while I was sick and recovering at home, I saw the notebooks again and decided to try them out. That time, though, it was definitely love at first write.

Keith Haring Habana notebooks are the most recent addition to the Quo Vadis limited edition Artist Series that include the art of Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse. Picasso's "Portrait of Dora Maar" and Matisse's "Icarus" and "The Creole Dancer" are the selected cover designs of their respective series.

Keith Haring's "Earth Day" and "Baby" on small Quo Vadis Habana notebooks.

These Keith Haring Habana notebooks, as with the other notebooks in the Quo Vadis' Artist Series, are made in France, with leather-like cover material which I love because they are soft, not very smooth, and not shiny either. This leather-like material is wrapped on what I assume is thick board, making the cover solid. The firm, solid covers of Quo Vadis Habana notebooks are made to provide writing support. Photo below shows the notebooks' back covers, printed with Keith Haring icons in the middle, while the Quo Vadis logo is etched in the bottom.

Quo Vadis made Keith Haring Habana notebooks in four designs and two sizes. The four designs are: 'Baby', 'Heart', 'Earth Day', and 'La Ronde'. They are available as either small (4" x 6") or large (6¼" x 9½") notebooks. Both Haring Habanas used in this review are small notebooks.

"Earth Day" is only available in small (4" x 6") size.

"Heart", though, comes in small (4" x 6") and large (6¼" x 9½") sizes.

The Keith Haring Habana notebooks have the same features as their regular counterparts: they have the elegant page ribbons/markers and elastic closures in matching colors. Soon I'll be tying the end of the page ribbons into knots to prevent ugly fraying.

Keith Haring's signature is printed in white on the notebooks' front covers. How elegant.

The small Haring Habana notebooks have 96 sheets of very smoooooth satin ivory paper. The pages have 5.5mm ruling, a welcome change from the wide 8mm ruling previously used on both large and small Habana notebooks. The pages have round corners too, which is great. I prefer notebooks with round corners because sharp page corners can sometimes cut into my fingers and palms when I'm writing. Round corners also look more elegant and stylish.

Round page corners of the Haring Habana notebooks.

Another wonderful feature of Quo Vadis Habana notebooks, including the Haring Habanas, is their sewn binding. This ensures more page security and flexibility, and also (again) adds to the notebooks' elegance. Sewn binding is so much better than most punch and bind methods because the pages are more secure and also tidy.

Sewn pages of the small Haring Habana notebooks.

These special Habana notebooks have lovely spines printed with Keith Haring's signature and icon. Definitely a welcome change from the old, plain spines of my previous notebooks.

The Haring Habana notebooks have printed spines.

The Habana's "small" is not the same in size as the "pocket" of other notebook brands, which is always misunderstood by many users who think that the two sizes are interchangeable. "Small" and "pocket" sizes are not the same. Several brands share the same "pocket" size, such as Moleskine and Rhodia, and Scribe here in the Philippines, while Quo Vadis uses the "small" size alone.

Size comparison: Two pocket notebooks on top, Moleskine and Rhodia. 

The two notebooks below are regular Rhodia and Keith Haring Habana.

I mentioned earlier that the Haring Habanas have smooth satin ivory paper. It is really very, very smoooooth but I did not have any difficulty writing on it. In fact, the smoothness made writing very easy and comfortable, compared to other overly smooth paper types that make writing uncomfortable. I also noticed that while the ruling in the old Habana notebook pages went all the way to the binding, it has a certain margin in the new notebooks.

If paper can make people happy, the Haring Habanas' paper will. 

I know because the smooth satin ivory paper made me happy.

Unlike the previous Habana notebooks with continuous lines, the Haring Habanas have dotted lines. But that's fine. The dotted lines didn't get in the way of my writing, or with the readability of what I've written. I actually think this is cool.

Haring Habana page up close. See the dotted lines?

Below is a page devoted to pen and ink tests, and I included gelpens, felt markers, and a permanent marker in the list to fully test the paper. All the fountain pen inks I tested on the Haring Habana fared very well. I did not see any serious feathering or bleed, even with the notorious bleeder, Noodler's Midnight Blue. I also used a couple of pens with broad Esterbrook nibs such as the Transitional J with Private Reserve Black Magic Blue and J pen with J. Herbin Lierre Sauvage. This is good news, and it made me very happy.

The "non-fountain pen" pens I used in the pen and ink test include Pilot G2s, Stabilo felt markers, Zebra Sarasas, and a Sharpie Ultra Fine Permanent Marker. All the other pens wrote well without feathering or bleed, except for the Sharpie which feathered and bled like an open faucet. But that's just okay. Sharpies bleed bad on most papers.

Inks on the Haring Habana up close: Waterman South Sea Blue, Pelikan Blue Black, 

Private Reserve Black Magic Blue, and Pelikan Edelstein Jade.

The "non-fountain pen" pens: Pilot G2, Stabilo, Zebra Sarasa, 

and Sharpie Ultra Fine Permanent Marker.

Shown here below is the back of the pen and ink test page. It's almost clean, without any ink bleed, except for the one on the bottom part of the page. which is the Sharpie pen.

Sharpie pen bleeds at the bottom of the page.

Overall, I am a very happy recipient of these notebooks and I am beginning to think of how to use them soon. A small journal? A notebook for my daily notes? Who knows? Being the fanatic that I am, I'm sure I'll find a way to use them sooner than I thought I would. Now you know where to get yours, right? All information about these lovely Keith Haring Habana notebooks are posted Quo Vadis' site here: http://quovadisplanners.com/notebooks, and also at the Quo Vadis blog here: http://quovadisblog.com/

The Quo Vadis Keith Haring Habana notebooks used in this review are from Exaclair, Inc. through Karen Doherty. The pens and inks used in this review all belong to my personal collection.

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Notebook Review: Midori Traveler's Journal

The Midori Traveler's Notebook has been one of my grail notebooks for the longest time. When I started collecting (and using) high-quality notebooks, I read about it at Patrick Ng's Scription site, and instantly fell in love with it. I wanted it, but I knew I could not have one. Yet. It was expensive and not available here in the Philippines. So I just continued to ogle at the thousands of Midori Traveler's Notebook photos on Flickr.

Unknown to me, the Philippines' biggest seller of fountain pen related stuff, Scribe Writing Essentials, has began stocking up and selling this highly coveted cultish notebook. After talking to its owner, Marian Ong, a notebook set was sent to me for review, pronto.

Marian sent me a large black Traveler's Notebook (TN) and I was instantly amazed by its Japanese packaging style, which is both presentation and function. Midori's packaging is minimalist and simple, yet elegant and classy. The notebook is packaged very well inside what looks like a thin box made from kraft paper, held together by a firm black elastic band. A small flyer about the notebook is also included in the packaging.

Inside the box are: large black leather Midori TN, cotton slipcase for the notebook, blank notebook refill (003), and a spare red elastic band to hold the notebook cover and refills. The soft cowhide leather of the Midori notebook/journal (sourced from Chiang Mai, Thailand), and the wide variety of changeable inserts, embellishments and other accessories give it a unique charm and magic.

The first thing on my mind when I saw my Midori TN is the paper used in the notebook refill. Paper is very important to me as I am a regular user of fountain pens. And I am ready and willing to forego any notebook if the paper cannot tolerate my very wet fountain pens and very saturated inks. Would it stand fountain pen use? Or would ink feather and bleed through its pages? Luckily for Midori TN, I knew that I can make my own refills, so paper is not an issue, but I'll discuss that towards the later part of this review.

The blank notebook refill has a kraft board cover and 64 pages of cream-colored paper . The inside cover page is printed with an upright rectangular box and the Midori logo.

As soon as the notebook was out of the box, it's customization galore!!! The first thing I did was to change the elastic bands. I opted to use the red band to give the notebook some contrast and brightness. The tiny round thing on the upper left corner of the notebook cover holds the elastic bands that keep the notebook inserts in place.

I rummaged through my boxes of stuff and found a small glass bead charm I could use to secure the end of the Midori TN's thin bookmark. Lovely, isn't it?

Next, I made my own refills using pages off my large Rhodia dotPad. I went to a printer, had them saddle-stapled several notebooks, and trimmed according to the Midori TN refill size. I recycled Starbucks paper bags as covers for my new refill notebooks. I had fun making Dymo tags for them too.

The first notebook is for lists of everything I have done and finished the whole day --  an inverted 'to-do' list.

The second refill is for my notes. Any notes. Blog ideas, project concepts, sketches, hand drawn maps, phone numbers, pen and paper stores, ink notes, restaurant bestsellers, etc.

Refill number three is a microjournal, called so because I have a full journal already. I just want to have a journal in my Midori TN. I have small writeups in this notebook about places I visited, postcards I received, books I've read, or movies I've watched.

I have also included Midori's plastic zipper pocket refill. This refill has one large zippered pocket and another pocket without a zipper. The zippered pocket can hold a lot of stuff, especially small pieces of paper such as receipts, stamps, business cards. Sometimes I put a pen or two inside and still manage to zip it. The pocket without zipper can accommodate bigger sizes of paper like postcards, prescription notes, etc.

Perhaps you've noticed that I've added another bookmark to my Midori TN with a new charm. I made one more bookmark for my "Finished/Done" notebook, as the original bookmark/charm is used on my microjournal. I love these charms!

But the customization does not end there for my Midori TN. It's now full of stickers and stuff (stamps, tea bag tags, postcards, etc. I know there will be more of these as the leather gets more scratches and scuffs softens with use and becomes more beautiful. 

Finally, the paper test. The refill that came with my Midori TN is blank. As I have difficulty writing on blank pages, I went ahead and ordered a ruled/lined refill which is what I used in the pen and ink test below. The cream-colored paper used in the ruled/lined refill is Midori paper. There are two types of paper used on Midori's notebook refills. One is Midori Diary (MD) Paper, the other is Designphil Pocket Book (DP) Paper. A note in the Midori website (here) gives a full explanation on the differences of the two paper types.

Midori Paper is smooth and thankfully fountain pen friendly. Some ink types showed feathering, but not one of all the inks I tested here bled.

Below is the back of the pen and ink test I did. There is not bleeding at all. The tiny blob of orange is show through, but it is very mild and not very noticeable. I say I'll be using this refill for another microjournal when my own refills ran out of pages.

I've kept the red elastic band for now and rotate several black bands with different combinations of trinkets and charms. One band has a small pewter elephant, another has a series of different color beads with a drop of olive green Swarovski stones, rescued from an earring without a matching pair. I've also changed charms since, and I have ordered a batch of lovely charms from a local supplier. I have stocked up on black elastic band from a local crafts store and just yesterday, I got a set of vintage letterstamps I'll use for more fun of notebook customizations. Will I use this notebook for how long it will be serviceable? Yes. With a notebook as versatile as the Midori TN, who wouldn't? The possibilities with the Midori Traveler's Notebook is excitingly never-ending!

The large Midori Traveler's Notebook used in this review is courtesy of Scribe Writing Essentials, and the regular, passport size notebooks and their refills are all available in their Eastwood City Mall store. A regular/large Midori Traveler's Notebook set sells for PHP2,595 (~US$61), while a passport-sized notebook costs PHP2,295 (~US$54). If you are somewhere in Asia, and would like to try the possibility of ordering from them, give them a call at +63 2 487 6339. 

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