Travel Notebook Challenge : Fabriano and Kraft

Since we’re all dreaming about Summer here on the tundra, I thought it would be fun to look at how different pens write in two different travel notebooks: the Fabriano pocket notebook and the Kraft pocket notebook.

They both look nice-the Fabriano is the red one. The Frabriano has some higher end features, such as 85g paper and a colorful cover, and thus more expensive. The Kraft has 24lb paper, high is higher than office paper’s typical 20lb weight.

Down to the writing. All the pens pictured wrote well on both notebooks (except for the mijia). From top down in the picture above they are: The Muji Thin Pen, Ohto Minimo Ballpoint pen, Tombow Airpress Ballpoint Pen, Mijia Signing Pen, Jinhao 911 Fountain Pen, Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen, The Ohto Horizon Ballpoint pen, and the Lamy Safari pencil.

Here’s how they all wrote on the Fabriano:

Here’s how they all wrote with the Kraft notebook:

All the pens were fun to write with on both notebooks. The Fabriano has a slightly glossy texture with is classy, while the Kraft has more grit to it. They both handled the the ballpoint pens and the pencil well, but you can see the Fabriano handled the fountain pens better, with less bleed.

The real question is going to be bleed through on the other side of the page. Here is the Fabriano:

Here is the Kraft:

We’re looking at opacity and ink bleed through. For me, the Kraft pocket notebook wins for opacity- it is harder to see what I wrote on the other side than with the fabriano pocket notebook. The Fabriano handles the the fountain pens better-note the bleeding on the back of the Kraft page.

Both handled ballpoint pens and the pencil better than the fountain pens (so maybe skip the fountain pen when traveling).

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