One “Flaw” Of Physical Notebooks (Which Is Actually An Advantage)

Well, I want to talk briefly about one of the so-called “flaws” of physical notebooks and how it is actually an advantage. I am, of course, talking about the limited number of pages. Yes, technically speaking, digital documents do have a finite length – limited by the amount of storage on your computer, memory stick, website etc….

But, given that about 620,000 words of basic plain text (eg: “.txt”) can take up only about eight and a half megabytes, it’s basically unlimited in functional terms these days. Even with more bloated modern document formats – or a happy medium, like rich-text format (“.rtf”) documents – text doesn’t exactly take up a huge amount of room on a computer compared to pictures, videos, games etc…. Even with the latest fancy document format from a large company, you’d have to write billions – or perhaps trillions – of words before you even came close to maybe filling up even a fraction of a modern hard drive or SSD.

And, yes, this sounds like a massive advantage and a massive advancement over old-fashioned pen and paper. And, in some ways, it totally is. It’s like an “infinite words” cheat code of some sort. Still, although its definitely useful in practical terms, it means that you miss out on something that you get with physical notebooks. Namely noting the passage of time and feeling a sense of achievement.

Back in last December, I somehow managed to finish the third volumes of both my physical gratitude journal and my physical fan art sketchbook within about a day of each other. Unlike endless lists of digital documents and scanned images, this had something of an “end of an era” feeling to it. These two books, which had been a daily fixture of my life for about eight months and four months respectively, had come to an end. Like a travelling companion and I had parted ways after a journey.

Contained in both books were memories of that time – written descriptions of every day or paintings of stuff I enjoyed at the time – and they had a defined beginning and ending. If I need to look back on a very specific four or eight month window of my past, then I can just pick up one of these books and open it. It also gives me a feeling of achievement too – like I have an actual physical thing to show for all of this time.

And, of course, when I start the next volume of each notebook, I get the feeling of a new beginning as well – I get to decide what I keep the same and what I change. It’s like adding chapters to your life, and it’s something that you only really get with physical notebooks.

Not only that, there’s also something of a rhythm and progression to using notebooks – the way that you’re eager to fill up some pages at the beginning, the way that the notebook just seems “ordinary” and “endless” when you’re in the middle of it and the weird feeling of tension when you near the end, nervously counting pages to work out how many more days of it are left. Wondering whether you should slow down and savour your remaining time with the notebook, or speed up and get started on the next one as soon as possible.

There’s also the fact that notebooks have continuity in the way that digital documents don’t really have. Yes, if you’ve got one document which you add to regularly, then you’ll experience some of this. But, most of the time, people tend to write lots of shorter, separate documents. Like the draft of this article, which is a single “.rtf” document file which isn’t connected to anything else.

On the other hand, with notebooks, there’s more of a linear progression and continuity to them. Things you’ve written on different days are connected by virtue of being in the same notebook. And I haven’t even talked about the intimacy and physicality of putting pen to paper either, something you don’t really get when you type on a keyboard (even if the results are more legible).

Yes, none of this is “efficient” or “practical”, but it is much more organic and satisfying in emotional terms. As your life progresses, you have different notebooks which travel with you for a time before concluding. Each one is a snapshot of a particular time. They’re long enough for you to get familiar with them, but short enough that you’ll also get used to changing notebook every few weeks or months. And, although nothing more can be added to a finished notebook, it is still there as proof that your time was not wasted. It is a thing that you made, something unique to you.

Finishing a notebook is a bittersweet experience, it’s the end of one era – but the beginning of another. And you don’t really get this with folders of digital documents or whatever. Yes, the limited length of a notebook might be a “flaw” in objective terms – but in subjective, emotional terms, it’s part of what makes them such meaningful things to use.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

These Notebooks Aren’t The Best (But Are Popular Because…)

Well, it has been a while since I wrote a lengthy stationery review – so I thought that I’d talk about Moleskine notebooks, my weird love-hate relationship with them and why they are popular.

If you haven’t heard of these, they’re a brand of notebook with rounded corners, an elastic strap, a bookmark ribbon and a cardboard pocket in the back. Yes, that also describes most modern hardback notebooks, but more on that later…

This is a Moleskine notebook. Due to the lighting, the rounded corners aren’t really visible here. I have a weird love-hate relationship with these notebooks…

Anyway, I’ve been using them as one of my notebooks ever since early 2022, when I decided that I should also have a physical version of my gratitude journal. Since I’d previously been given a 13cm x 21cm hardback Moleskine – with a black cover with liquorice allsorts printed on it – by a relative, I decided to use this for the journal. Unlike the cheaper “ordinary” notebooks I use everyday, it felt important and prestigious.

Since then, I’ve bought three more 13cm x 21cm “Classic” hardback Moleskines (for about £10-15 each) and I have complicated feelings about them.

For starters, astute readers will have noticed that 13cm x 21cm is NOT a standard paper size. It works well enough and you can actually find other hardback notebooks in this size (like the cheaper Moleskine-inspired plain paper ones made by Cambridge and typically sold on Amazon for £4-5).

Still, if I was being cynical, it almost seems like the weird size is the closest thing to “proprietary lock-in” that you can get with a notebook – since, if you switch to other notebooks, then they will probably be a different size, and will look weird on a shelf or whatever. So, the unusual size sort of makes you want to stick with them if you’re using multiple notebooks for the same purpose.

Plus, although I prefer plain paper notebooks for most things, the thin ruling in a Moleskine allows for a decent amount of writing compared to “ordinary” ruled paper. At the very least, it compensates for the pages being 1.8cm less wide than standard A5 paper.

There’s also the issue of paper thickness as well. When I started using Moleskines, I wanted to use a bolder and higher-quality pen than the ordinary cheap ballpoint pens I used for everyday writing at the time. This was the fanciest notebook I owned, and using a biro felt like sacrilege.

Since I’m not really a fountain pen person and I don’t find gel pens fun to write with, this meant liner pens or rollerball pens (since I use these for art anyway...). The thing about Moleskines, at least in the early-mid 2020s, is that they use fairly thin paper. Yes, this allows for a higher page count in a relatively small space, but it also means that you might only be able to use one side of each page.

Even ballpoints and 0.2mm liner pens may still leave a faint ghost of what was written on the other side. If you use anything even vaguely heavier than these, then expect the other side of the page to be ruined.

For example, here’s the other side of a page written on with a 0.5mm Uni-Ball Eye Needle rollerball pen. This isn’t that much of a heavy pen – compared to, say, the 0.7mm Pilot V Ball rollerball pens I use for writing in one of my other notebooks these days, or a fountain pen.

Here’s the other side of a Moleskine (purchased in 2022-3) notebook page when paired with a 0.5mm rollerball pen.

In other words, despite the prestige of these notebooks and the slightly premium price, they probably work best with cheap ballpoints or basic pencil if you want to use the notebook’s full capacity. Yes, the paper has a classy faded colour to it and it isn’t “bad paper” in technical terms (it’s acid-free, for starters) but it also isn’t as substantial as you might expect.

Plus, on the latest example I was using at the time of writing, the build quality – whilst still good – didn’t seem quite as good as earlier examples. The spine/cover sometimes seems to audibly creak when I open the book. Plus, some inner pages which were plain in earlier examples are now half-covered with unnecessary space-wasting blurbs (“Our Manifesto”), QR codes etc… (wasting useful space) in this one.

[Edit: A later example, a myrtle green one which I bought at a discount from a large online shop sometime after preparing the draft of this article, appears to be of even lower quality. It broke about halfway through using it! The pages began to separate from the cover at the back, leading to a hasty bodged repair with some nearby sticky labels…]

Yet, I still use them – albeit not as my main notebook. But why are they so popular?

Part is probably just the branding and sales tactics – even though there are other higher-end notebook brands (eg: Leuchturm, Rhodia etc...), and even the cheap Cambridge notebook I mentioned earlier has sturdier paper – the Moleskine name is probably the most recognisable.

Not only do they have display stands in bookshops and places like that, but there’s the classy French-style presentation (even though the label says: “Designed by Moleskine in Italy – Manufactured in Turkey”) and they will often release examples with limited-edition cover designs as well. Even the “standard” covers come in a large range of colours.

In part, it’s sort of a “cult-following” type thing. Like how – for reasons I’ve never understood – some people still buy Apple computers, rather than more cost-effective and customisable PCs.

Another part is probably that – despite the thin paper – they still aren’t exactly “bad” notebooks. The binding is reasonably good, they lay flat when opened and – paper thickness aside – they’re a functional and reliable notebook.

Yes, many other notebooks are well-made – even including some cheaper ones – but buying cheap stationery from unknown online brands can be a bit of a gamble in terms of build quality. So, whilst Moleskines might not be the very best, at least you know that you’re getting a reasonable mid-high quality notebook if you buy one.

But, perhaps most of all, there is the fact that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. I’ve written a longer article about this but it’s very telling that virtually all of the cheaper A5 hardback notebooks you can find these days try to imitate the style of a Moleskine.

Go back to the 2000s and cheap hardback notebooks were a lot more basic and utilitarian – square corners, no elastic strap etc… – but, these days, pretty much every budget hardback notebook manufacturer wants to be like Moleskine. They seem to have set the standard template for hardback notebooks these days.

Yes, in all good conscience, I can’t fully recommend buying a Moleskine. The Cambridge notebooks I mentioned earlier are less than half the price and, though noticeably “cheap” in some subtle ways, offer more substantial paper (which handles rollerball pens better...) and a relatively similar experience to using a Moleskine.

And, although I haven’t really tried out other higher-end notebook brands, at least some of them apparently offer sturdier paper than Moleskine too. Still, saying that, I don’t entirely regret using Moleskines either, they’re “fancy” in a fun way and not entirely bad. Again, I have a love-hate relationship with them.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

One Person’s “Normal”… – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about “normality” today. This was something I ended up thinking about after watching a random Youtube video about a guy who decided to try using a traditional notepad instead of a smartphone.

The video made it sound really dramatic and cool – with the video’s presenter talking about how it allowed for more “organic thinking” and less distractions. But then I realised that, honestly, I already have that. Whilst I use desktop computers and I used old Nokia phones for parts of the 2000s/early 2010s, I never really entered the smartphone age. I still write notes on little pieces of paper, write stuff in notebooks/ journals and stuff like that. All of these wonderful qualities he was describing so enthusiastically were just… normal… to me. Ordinary, humdrum, mundane, the way of the world.

Some of the comments below the video mentioned people who had become unused to writing things by hand too. Again, this seemed strange to me. After literal decades of daily practice, my “everyday” handwriting… is a fast borderline-illegible scrawl which only I seem to be able to decipher (seriously, it took me until my early twenties before I could type as quickly as I could write. And, yes, I’m left-handed).

It’s just an… ordinary… thing. Part of everyday life. A quick way of recording information or noting down ideas, thoughts, introspection, experiences etc… Sometimes I’ll type a more legible copy (usually in, ironically, Windows’ “Notepad” or an old version of WordPad) but, since I’m the only one who usually reads it, my usual high-speed illegible handwriting isn’t really a problem:

This is an example of my almost-illegible “everyday” handwriting. Yes, I can make it more legible if I write slowly, plus I’ll usually use block capitals whenever I make comics too. Still, this is what my writing usually looks like. And if anyone is curious what this says, it was a description of the mood/atmosphere of playing the computer game “Bioshock” (2007) on a gloomy, rainy evening the previous day (in early November last year). The “timeless” atmosphere, the music I listened to afterwards, the noise of the pouring rain and the contrast between the warm light inside the house and the dark blue sky outside the window which felt like I was – like in the game – living underwater. It was a really beautiful moment!

Still, it was strange to realise that this thing I see as completely, but never quite boringly, normal thing was being touted as some kind of mental tonic for the digital age. Some revolutionary “This will improve your life!” type of thing. When, again, it’s just normal to me. Like anyone, I have good and bad moods, I still get distracted by things and, sometimes, my ordinary “organic thoughts” can be as annoying as they are amazing. Again, it’s all just kind of… ordinary.

But it clearly isn’t for many people, and this felt deeply strange. And this reminded me of something about normality – it’s all relative. Your “normal” might be someone else’s “weird” and vice-versa.

Because there are clearly people out there who don’t think in the way that I do – for whom so-called “organic thinking” is a strange, refreshing novelty. Who are constantly at the whim of notifications and bleeps and bloops, and who have adapted to this and probably just see it as perfectly ordinary. Who always have the internet with them at literally every moment, and find this to be not only normal but also deeply reassuring too (though to be fair, I usually spend quite a few hours online every day – albeit on a desktop – so I can totally see the appeal).

To them, I would be the “weird” one. An “eccentric”, a “throwback” or whatever. Again, normality is a surprisingly relative thing. Two people can have drastically different definitions of the same word, a word which literally refers to what is usual, commonplace and ordinary.

Which, when you actually think about it, is a hilariously weird paradox. Which, itself, is normal (seriously, there are a lot of paradoxes, contradictions and inconsistences in the world). And so on and so on.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

How To Draw A Spiral-Bound Notebook

For today’s instalment of my “How To Draw” series, I thought that I’d show you how to draw a spiral-bound notebook.

This image is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.