Review: @InkJournal Classic Notebook - 3 Pack

Tom Oddo is the brains behind the InkJournal but you probably also recognize his name from Goldspot Pens (it's not just pens, it's other luxury gifts as well). These journals are meant for collecting and recording your favorite pen and ink combinations using the organized journal pages. Furthermore, the journals use green production methods and choices, which I love!

ABOUT

Size: 3.5" x 5.5"
Color: White (not bright)
Sheet Count: 15 ink records per notebook
Price: $10.00USD per 3-pack (or $19.00USD for 6)
Where to buy: InkJournal

APPEARANCE

The Ink Journal Classic notebook is a small, pocket-sized notebook with kraft paper. The cover has a very nice piece of artwork on the front of a nib and the top of an ink bottle (appropriate, since it's an ink journal!). Inside, you will find an index - "Inkdex" - or a table of contents, where you can list your inks as you have recorded them. Further in, there are 15 ink records. One side of each ink record has space for you to fill in information about the ink and pen you are using. The back of that page has a blank space for notes and additional information.

PERFORMANCE & FEEL

You  might expect the fine-writing specialist of Goldspot Pens to pick the most exquisite, fountain pen-friendly paper in existence for an ink cataloging system, right? Not necessarily. The paper isn't like Clairefontaine or Tomoe River or anything, rather, it's 100% recycled and printed with vegetable-based inks. I think that's really cool and I like to support the use of recycled papers. This isn't to say recycled papers can't be fountain pen friendly, but the experience is different. With broad nibs, I experienced bleed through and a small amount of feathering, which is really quite fine with me. The point of the Ink Journal is to have a tidy system for organizing and cataloging your inks and it is quite perfect.

Each page provides space for you to take note of the pen, nib, and ink combination you're using, as well as the date, flow, saturation, and shading, space for a swab/scribble, dry time, and comments/notes. It's pretty cool and it's a very efficient system that makes keeping track of your inks much more agreeable. It does for me, at least.

If you only have a few inks and a few pens, you could even use one notebook per ink, and have a page for each pen, filled with that particular ink! Heck, even if you have 50 inks and pens, you could still do that!

PROS

• Very useful for keeping track of your inks and favorite pen and ink combinations. 
• 100% recycled papers.
• Printed with vegetable-based inks.
• Each 3-pack of notebooks includes an instructional blotter card.
• Books are hand-crafted using presses and production machinery that is powered by renewable energy.
• Made in the USA.

CONS  

• You are likely to experience some bleed through, show through, and feathering with certain inks and pens.

OVERALL 

With my ink collection bordering on 100 bottles, I can't believe I didn't already invest in this great system. I don't care that there was some bleed through and feathering. I want to be able to flip through these notebooks and see what inks I have and what the colors look like, what their properties are. Sometimes my memory needs refreshing. I'd much rather accomplish this through the green production methods and recycled paper choices that Tom has chosen, and it works pretty well. It's a great system and the notebooks are priced around the same price point as other pocket sized notebooks. I do recommend you give them a go if you are looking to catalog your inks.

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Thank you Tom for sending these InkJournals for me to review. I was not compensated monetarily for this review. All opinions here are my own!