Mr. Foreal Lee, the retail & marketing manager at
Daycraft, generously sent us the Daycraft catalogue, two notebooks, and an executive planner for review! I was delighted by the items he selected to send.
Although I want to do one massive review of all three products, I thought each notebook/planner deserved their own review so they can be viewed in all their glory.
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| Awesome! |
Daycraft's motto is "We Make Your Day" which is rather clever in several ways in that
Daycraft specializes in day planners, diaries, and notebooks. They can literally help make your day.
Daycraft is made in Hong Kong and they have quite a range of products. Without further ado, today's review will be on the
Executive Pocket Diary.
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| Love the size and color. It's a perfect match. |
Some features of the Executive Pocket Diary
248 pages
Week-to-view
Fine Italian PU
Inkjet printed edges (matches cover)
Blue satin bookmark
w89 mm x h165 mm
This pretty little pocket diary is like eye candy. It is slim and portable. The color is really fantastic - it's a warm, rich turquoise blue (which I'm not sure I was able to capture in the picture properly). The planner is complemented with a dark mustard yellow elastic that is attached at the back of the planner, and hooks snugly and securely on to a metal post on the front cover.
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| Isn't this post simple and genius? |
At first glance, this little thing can be mistaken for a pretty wallet. Plus, the cover is fine Italian polyurethane, but it looks like leather. It's easy to wipe clean if you spill anything on it! The spine has the year - 2012 - engraved into it. Imagine how pretty a whole bunch of these lined up on your bookshelf would look...
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| Sleek and simple. |
The back cover has Daycraft tastefully and cleanly stamped into the bottom corner. The inside back cover has a little pocket. It won't hold an 8.5''x11'' paper or anything, unless you fold it, but it'll certainly hold tickets or receipts and various things like that.
This amazing little diary is chock full of information, and yet it still manages to be slim and slender. The first few pages contains yearly calendars for 2011/2012/2012. This is followed by international holidays, international guides (taxes, currency, etc), time zones, a world map, and IDD codes. And then there are a few strange and unique pages: golf courses, a vintage chart for wines, conversion tables, tables of food calories, and sections on nutrition and health. I was mostly fascinated that
Daycraft thought to include most of these because most of these are unheard of in US planners. It's very neat and interesting to see planners designed in other parts of the world.
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| Please excuse my fingertips. |
On to the calendar! Each month has its own color, and it begins with a page of a quote. December is brown, and the quote is "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life", by Steve Jobs. I love this feature. It's a little bit of inspiration at the start of each month. Sometimes a good quote can turn your day around. Across from this page is a blank page for notes, as well as a month overview at the bottom. Each week is spread across two pages - as usual, Saturday and Sunday share a space. There is sufficient room for most notes/appointments and deadlines, but if you are a person who writes every single thing down in their planner, you will run out of space! Don't forget though, this is a pocket sized planner, so it's for on-the-go. Another pretty touch is that as the end of the month nears, the color scheme starts to transition into the new month's color!
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| I love the first page of quotes. Also a good place to jot notes and other keepers! |
The end of the day planner has the following year calendar - in our case, 2013 - as well as pages for income and expenses, a venue list, main contacts, and note pages. Another interesting thing to note is the page of personal information (name/address/phone numbers etc) is at the back of the notebook, right before additional blank pages. In US day planners, the personal information page is right at the front.
If you are a fountain pen user, this day planner will not be suitable for you. The paper is somewhat thin and your ink will certainly bleed through. The same goes for liquid ink pens. Gel, ballpoint pens, and pens all worked just fine. Again, for an on-the-go day planner, I suspect most people toss a ballpoint or pencil into their bags.
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| Sadly, you can see the bleed through. Stick to pencil, ballpoint, and gel pens! |
More Daycraft!
Pencil Revolution
Price
I have yet to find a US online retailer for the day planners. If anyone knows of any, please share in the comments.
Daycraft will ship worldwide though!
Overall
This is a very pretty and well designed diary. It is The only downside is they are rather pricy on this continent, however planners are hardly cheap to begin with, especially nice ones. I'm really impressed with this planner's overall character and quality - this planner goes to show that things made in Hong Kong can still be very well made! If you are in the market for a cute/pretty, portable day planner, this is a great one.
**I was provided one or more of these products for review, but all opinions are my own!
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3 comments:
When I first acquired my planner (that I still use), I was fascinated by the information pages it contained. There are maps of the world, annual weather patterns, and clothing and accessory conversions. At first I found them trivial, but I ended up using them more frequently than expected. That sets the bar for all planners to come. Perhaps that is why I still hang on to it!
You wrote " this planner goes to show that things made in Hong Kong can still be very well made". I think you are suggesting that Hong Kong has a reputation of making crap products therefore making it rare to find good products from there. I am curious why you would think such a thing? Most of the manufacturing that makes the traditional "made in China" stereotypical type stuff is not from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is not shy on people and it's diversity is vast. There are probably more artisans in Hong Kong than in all of North America. Needless to say it is not hard to find top quality products coming from there.
Anyway, thanks for the great review. Those are new products to me and it is always fun to see new unique things especially in this genre. I feel like the internet is limited to the same hand full of pens and other office supplies, mainly Jetpens products. The blogs with reviews I read all do there weekly link sharing and it is like they all rotate products to each other (of course it is me and my search effort that is limited). I like your blog becasue of the things you get from Shoplet and other sources. Come on, where else can you read a review of a paper shredder or Numi tea in the circle of blog land that you are associated with? Good work and thanks for sharing.
Mine has similar odd-ball information pages as well! When I first opened mine, I thought to myself, "when will I need a world map, a clothing size conversion chart, and some weather predication sheet around the globe?" I wind up using them several times! Perhaps that is why I still have my original planner...
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