When I saw the Fabriano Eco Qua dot grid notebook at our local Utrecht, I couldn’t pass up that lime green cover. I purchased the A5 (5.8″x8.25″) size with a light grey dot. Its 85gsm paper in a soft white. I wouldn’t call it ivory but its not a bright blue-white either. A pleasing-to-the-eye white. The grey dots are fairly unobtrusive and pretty close together so its good for anyone with small handwriting or if you want to use two rows of dots for larger writing.
The cover is not sealed to the perfect bound (or more specifically glue padded) sheets so it can be folded back out of your way while writing. Because the sheets are only glue bound into the book, I wouldn’t recommend this for long term archival uses as the glue will grow brittle over time and the pages will fall out. But for work notes, letters or situations where you would want to be able to perf out pages quickly and easily, this is a very good pad for that.
I had so little issue with bleed through, or even show through, that I totally forgot to take a picture of the reverse of the sheet. The only line that even showed through on the back was the Lamy Studio 1.1 with dark brown ink.
I’ve written several letters on this paper as its a good-quality inexpensive pad to carry around with me. $4.99 available with eight different colored covers. Other sizes and configurations are available.
East… West… Everywhere also reviewed the Eco Qua and does fantastic calligraphy with it!
great review. i love mine but the thin cardstockcover is not super-durable, so it bent easily in my already crammed bag; so you’d need an A5 notebook cover or just not be squeamish about battered cover: plus i have not come across a lot of dot-grids, esp. not at that price. & it seems only Utrecht/Dick Blick artsupplystores carries them, unless you buy them on-line, which may be an Inconvience to some…