Back in 2013, I reviewed the Word.Notebooks but have not spent much time with them since. The original assortment in Camo, Orange and Kraft colors didn’t inspire much loyalty from me but when I saw the indigo series and the polygon series, I was moved to gives these more consideration. I liked the look of the indigo and polygon books and they seemed to be doing something different from Field Notes.
I’ve also recently started to employ the Bullet Journal system to my to-do lists and notetaking so the Word. Notebooks seemed like a good fit since they use a checkbox-and-line layout on the pages.
The indigo series includes two Japanese asanoha pattern books and one indigo dotted polygon design.The covers of these books are kraft colored cardstock with a navy indigo and opaque white litho printing.
The polygon design books are available in 3-packs of either orange, blue or grey or a mixed pack of one of each. I went with the mixed 3-pack so that I could experience all three color options. The colors in this set remind me of orange sherbet, ice blue mints and milky tea. These covers are printed on bright white cardstock making the colors pretty bright instead of the traditional kraft coverstock.
Inside both books feature the same lined paper in bright white with light grey lines and the Word. Notebook bullet system. There is a key to their notetaking system on the inside cover though I’m inclined to integrate the Bullet System iconography instead. The lining is light enough to be useful without being distracting.
As mentioned in my previous review, the Word. Notebooks do a decent job with most regular pens and writing tools. Fine line fountain pens don’t feather or bleed too badly, there’s slight showthrough but not too bad. With pocket notebooks, there can be a trade-off between price and portability versus fountain-pen friendliness. To get paper that is fountain pen friendly is to either increase costs, dry time or thickness which reduces the portability and quickness of using a pocket notebook.
That said, overall, the Word. Notebooks are a pleasing option for a pocket notebook. If you are looking for a book specifically for lists, its a win-win.
Three-packs of Word. Notebooks are available for $9.99 per set from their web site.
What would be the value of using one of these over a highly durable, fountain pen-friendly Apica C-10? You’re not using their system, anyway.
John
The Apica CD-10 is a great recommendation for a different pocket notebook option. We’ve been chatting on Twitter about fountain pen friend budget notebooks and this totally fits the bill!
Accent on “friendly” and “fountain pen” because I’ve carried my Apica in my back pocket while hiking, fishing, and riding through the mountains on my scooter, and it’s biding held together from May through about 2 weeks ago. And the quality of the paper, to me, is equal to Tsubame, Life, and my Leuchtterm journals.