Is it a planner or a journal… or both? This week’s reviews feature two flexible daily formats.
Summer break is here for many college students, but since summer (as I recall) goes fast, I figured it would be a good time to highlight one of our academic calendars: the Scholar.
Would that I had known about this during my own college and grad school days! It’s a weekly calendar with nice, open untimed lines on each day, big enough to write in comfortably, but slim enough to slip tidily into a bag or backpack. Plus, there’s a very decent chunk of space devoted to Sundays and a handy Anno Planner up front (though I imagine a monthly calendar would be useful, too).
The standard Scholar goes from August to July, but there’s also a 17-month version. It’s also available in our eco-friend Equology format. And when you want to graduate to a January-to-January format, the Hebdo is your equivalent (and it does have a monthly calendar).
Here are some reviews from around the web:
Do you use the Scholar? What do you like best and least about it?
It’s a good day for fresh art, with reviews of ink and paper.
It’s another lovely day in New York, and I’m pleased to share these lovely reviews of different products in the Exaclair family.
Speaking of the Textagenda, we recently received the following suggestion via email:
I think this planner would be even more useful if there was a single-page week-overview at the start of every week.
This page serves two important, organization-enhancing functions:
1. An overview of the week without flipping pages
2. Every week becomes 8 pages instead of 7, so every day of the week will be on the side of the page. For example, all the Mondays on the left, all the Tuesdays on the right. This will make flipping ahead for future scheduling easier. Static days of the week may also be useful for visualizing one’s calendar if it accidentally gets left behind.
It would make the book fatter, of course, but perhaps that’s worth the tradeoff. Readers, what do you think?
The Textagenda is one of our mid-sized daily planners, but based on the layout I think it’s got much more potential.
At the top of each page is a small timestamped section on which to write your appointments. Below it are 14 lines to fill with… anything, really. You can look forward, and write your goals, aspirations, and to-dos. You can look back and use it as a journal. I suppose you could even use it to write, say, a paragraph a day of a piece of writing? Though it’s perhaps a bit small for that.
There’s also a small blank section at the bottom of each page for notes, perhaps the things you want to prioritize.
The size, at any rate, reminds me of a smallish, but substantial novel, which is perhaps why I think of prose. I’ve never used it as a planner, though I have used it as a notebook, because good paper is a terrible thing to waste.
Here are some reviews from around the web:
If winter’s gray skies are giving you the blues, check out this colorful review from California, where Erin of La Plume Etoile tries out J. Herbin’s pearlescent inks.
I really enjoyed testing these inks and plan to use them for special occasion items such as when writing someone a special card… If you are interested in them, I would recommend giving them a chance and playing with the right nib and paper combinations.
Meanwhile, it’s not surprising that you’d say nice things about a company that gave you a prize (which is not to say we expect our own contest winners to rave about their loot if they don’t like it!) but I enjoyed reading this blurb about a UK contest winner all the same. Her name is Sheila English, and she won something we don’t make — an iPhone. Here’s what she had to say about the pleasingly named Europa Minor notepad she bought when she entered the contest:
I am always making notes and was looking for something that I could easily carry in my handbag, and the Europa Minor Pad was an ideal size (plus came in purple, my favourite colour!)
(Europa Minor is a notebook by Tollit and Harvey, an Exacompta subsidiary whose products we don’t import in the US.)
Before I fell in love with the Space 17 and its weekly notes page, it was the Sapa X I used to plan my days and weeks. Like the Space 17, it’s compact and ultra portable, and it works very well for people like me who don’t have a lot of appointments. Karen combines it with a Rhodia pad to get all the space she needs.
What I miss about the Sapa X is its blank planning boxes, which give you a lot of freedom to doodle, partition, and organize each day however suits you best. It has two blank notes pages at the start of each month and a mini monthly calendar on each week that shows where the week falls in that month. For me, though, the extra room to take notes on the Space 17 makes it hard to contemplate going back.
Do you use the Sapa X? What do you like best and least about it?
A little background is in order: I have an RSS feed that alerts me whenever someone links to this blog or to the main Quo Vadis website. The dates are a little funky, though, and often I receive a “new” alert about a link that dates back several years.
Sometimes, these links are new to me; other times, they remind me of a review that I’ve already read. Either way, there’s no shame in this, because it’s always useful to see what people have to say about our products, no matter when they said it.
Anyway, the review I’d like to share today is brief, and it made me smile not just because of who wrote it (our old friend and inaugural Writers’ Project subject Damon Young) but because of this great line about Habanas:
“It’s a journal for writing in; for the sensual, ebullient glide of inked metal on paper.”
Got a new review? Let us know!
Two great planner reviews as we head into this clear, cold New York weekend.
