I finally bought a couple Subtle Notebooks from Cortex Brand. I won’t go into their whole deal; I’d like to just focus on this particular product.
I’m a notebook hoarder. I’ve always enjoyed having journals around, with different shapes, paper types, and cover styles. Admittedly, many of these are still blank, or only partially filled. Some of them have a specific use-case that has run its course (or has been extensively delayed), while others are too nice, too boring, or just don’t feel quite right for some things I have in mind.
I’ve had a few cheap moleskin notebooks I bought for work, and they have been slowly filled with notes, bits of math, and quick reminders. They’ve been great. However, my others have been languishing. I’m not a huge fan of lined paper for general note-taking, and it feels wrong to use, for example, an Italian leather journal gifted to me by my sister for random notes during a podcast.
Yet, I still bought two subtle notebooks after I saw my fiance had one. Its stitching makes it lay flat incredibly well, the cover is a pleasing soft-touch, and it has dot-grid paper which has become my favorite type over the past five years, eclipsing my previous preference for blank. After a few weeks of sitting on my desk, untouched, I finally decided they would be my writing journals. I would sketch out ideas, make any notes, or be a receptacle when typing into a computer doesn’t feel quite right.
It’s worked perfectly in this role. I’ll walk around with it in my backpack, and leave it open on my desk. While it’s a bit on the expensive side, and I can be reasonably served by other products, the fit and finish is superb, in particular the thicker paper that works with any pen I use, and how well it lays flat. So, the increased price is worth it to me, given how slowly I move through notebooks. If you’re in the market, give it a shot.