Thoughts From Thorsten About Story Supply and Writepads

This week, we’d like to introduce you to Thorsten.  A fan and supporter of Pocket Notebooks, he has a fantastic blog over here, and today has put his thoughts down on two of his recent purchases.

Notebooks are made to be used. As a collector and heavy user of paper notebooks, I was pleased to be asked for my thoughts of two new brands in town. Loving Field Notes as my main notebooks, I am surprised by two other brands and use them a lot now: Write Notepads & Co. and Story Supply Co.

Both are paper notebooks for your pockets (either back or front pockets work well!) - or you could throw them in a bag or something else instead - but the simple fact is they’re built to be carried around and used regularly.

As a teacher, I was pleased to see for every sale of each pack of three notebooks, both of the makers will donate to an educational project, gifting some notebooks for pupils to work with. It´s a bit like the PaperStax Project I’m familiar with, and a big fan of.

The Story Supply Books are bound by a staple gun with three staples. The paper is #70 Cougar Natural smooth paper, and the cover #100 French Paper Co. Kraft-Tone. Pocket notebook size of 3.5" x 5.5" is a given, and you’re able to buy them as blank, lined or graph paper, making them perfect for all uses, whatever it is you do.  Oh, and 48 pages waiting per book gives you plenty of space!

In comparison, the pocket notebooks from Write Notepads & Co. are glue bound with 100-pound cover stock and a 70-pound paper stock.  Yep, no staples - just glue. And what’s cool is you get 64 pages in every book, almost a full 30% more than Story Supply Co.’s notebooks.

Both papers are fine for fountain pens, and I personally like them more than the paper in most Field Notes or Moleskines for that type of writing.  Pencils are obviously a no-brainer in both, and I’ve used both water-pencils and water-colour-rainbow-color pencils in each, and they too work fine.

The drying time does differ a bit across each set of notebooks, but only marginally.  Bleeding through, however, Story Supply Co.’s notebooks are a step ahead (although saying that, Write Notepads & Co.’s follow closely).

Opening the books is a point where they differ a lot. The Story Supply Co. notebooks unfold easily, staying open as and where you want them to. The Write Notepads & Co.’s, however, being glue bound, have a hard edge that stops the cover staying open fully, and the more you get to the middle of the book, the harder it gets.

But, with the quality of the book in general, this is just a minor issue I soon found I prefered to cope with!

Simply put, I like them both.  They are really good alternative notebooks to the horde of Field Notes I have around me, but they have to fight each day for my love.  If I had to pick one, I think I prefer the Story Supply notebooks a little more...but I can’t not use the Write Notepads & Co. notebooks for my daily business.

Long story short, order them both and have fun.  They are stationery goodness, without any doubt.

Thanks for your time reading this small review - enjoy your writing time, whichever notebook you opt for!