Quo Vadis Journal 21 Daily Planner Review

Posted: January 23rd, 2010 | Author: Thomas | Filed under: Ink & stationery, Reviews of all kinds | 3 Comments »

Karen @ Exaclair sent me some awesome stuff this week so first up is my new daily planner for 2010!

I developed a new review format for stationary that I hope is more thorough and professional, if it is well received all future reviews will follow this format.

 

The Quo Vadis “Journal 21“

 

 

1) Model & specifications

 

 

 

The Journal 21 is a daily 8 am to 9 pm planner made out of 72g acid free vellum paper with a very soft tint, it is refillable and the pages feature sewn binding.

It also has;

• 16 months monthly, September 2009 to December 2010
• Soft green tinted vellum paper
• Acid-free and pH neutral paper
• Annual planning calendars for 2010 and 2011
• Current and following month calendars
• Elegant round corners — tear-off corner opens to day in progress
• Lays flat when open
• Full line per half-hour
• Blank space for daily notes
• Bound in address book

 

2) Size, Feel & Appearance

 

 

 

The Journal 21 features a very tactile experience in a very crisp faux leather cover, the pattern is very subtle with mild pebbling and artificial crease lines, very nice effect that has the advantage of not looking like the average common store planners while retaining the weather proof benefits of man made materials!

The binding is sewn perfectly and when opened the planner is pretty much flat which is just perfect if like me you like to be able to write without needing your other hand to keep your planner open.

5 1/4″ x 8 1/4″ (13 x 21 cm)

Just a great, versatile size.

 

 

The planner is removable from the cover and this allows you to refill it at the end of the year (or keep the same planner but have different covers for different occasions throughout the year?)

The covers material is not so thick that it becomes inflexible or so thin that it feels cheap and easily torn.

I feel Quo Vadis struck the right balance with this one. The stitching while not perfect was still very good and clearly professionally executed.

Overall I would rate the Journal 21 very highly in terms of quality and workmanship.

 

 

 

3) Features

 

 

As you open it you are graced with a very nice & in-depth personal information page, although to be honest all I have filled out was my name & e-mail.

Should I ever misplace my planner I would not want the finder to have so much information about me!

 

 

On the next page you are faced with the holidays for the year, a nice touch being it features major world holidays too!

 

 

International access codes!

Super useful if like me you work in a profession that requires a lot of international networking!

 

 

Time zones for the United States of America, not very useful for a European like me but since you incorrigible Yankees are the largest market I am sure it proves useful for you! I like the details with the fonts, very nicely done Quo Vadis.

The typographer in me approves.

 

 

You also get a great semi annual planner (3 months a page) AND mini annual planner (1 month a page that goes up to February 2011).

Great to highlight important dates & appointments!

 

 

I simply love tabbed corners instead of those place marker ribbons because the ribbons tend to fray and get in the way. Cut out corners are all business, pure refined utility.

I like.

 

 

Thats what its all about baby!

Full size page fabricated from that sumptuous vellum paper (but more on that later!) its quite honestly a delight to wake up with an empty page to write down your slave schedule for the day and other scribbles.

The spacing implements 30 min increments from 8 till 9, great detail that’s nicely executed.

It also features tabs on the side so when you flick through you can quickly locate the month in question!

Makes you wonder why the folks at Quo Vadis did not include a toaster. ;]

Whats with that omission Karen?

 

 

And finally at the back it has a very simple and straight forward address book with space for name OR company name, e-mail and mobile & home phone numbers.

Its a nice extra to have when you dont have your phone in hand or if you need some numbers jotted down for emergencies/reference.

 

 

4) Writing Performance

 

 

 

Now onto the fun part of the review!

The samples above tell the story, 74g and its completely amazing! I have used 90g paper that bled through like crazy but this is truly awesome!

Unfortunately I couldn’t show off a plethora of fountain ink samples since I left all my ink in Singapore from my hasty return to Europe due to personal reasons and instead I just used a bunch of pens that I had lying around and that reflected a wide range of scenarios and uses.

To make something clear; the only sample that featured prominent bleedthrough was the red permanent marker and it looks worse in photographs than in the flesh, you will just have to take my word for it or man up, call me a liar and buy a Quo Vadis Journal 21 just to prove me wrong ;] .

While it handles fountain pen ink perfectly I found myself utilizing pencils on it alot this week since the vellum that makes it oh so smooth to write on also takes it oh so long for the ink to dry!

However when I am writing in a less hasty fashion I do revert to fountain pens.

At the end of the day the Journal 21 offers you the choice to use whatever writing utensil you desire and thats what makes it awesome.

Besides Sharpie markers you will find very few restrictions when choosing  your weapon of choice to wield for scribbling dentist appointments in a very angry self hating script (why oh why do sweet things taste so good? MHMM?).

Speaking of script, I wrote in block because my writing is horrendously styled and happens to be legible to only myself and those sexy blue people from Avatar.

 

5) Conclusion

 

The true awesomeness of this Journal stems from the paper utilized, I spent a few days trekking through a jungle in search of the recipe and after battling hordes of giant jelly babies the method in which the paper is manufactured was revealed to me…

 

• Wood pulp
• Fairy wings
• Chewing tobacco
• and the tears of new born kittens

 

Makes perfect sense to me!

In all seriousness I just dig the paper, its just almost perfect (if only ink would dry quicker!).

The build quality is awesome.

I sometimes wish it had a back pocket but if it had one it would become fat should I utilize it so to be honest I dont want one (I just like the IDEA of one ;] ).

No much else to add really, Awesome.

Future reviews of a Rhodia pad & Clairefontaine sketch pad coming up, I wont review the Rhodia pencil that was sent along since I dont know how to review a pencil! And who knows, perhaps I will receive more Exaclair products in the future!

Thanks Karen & thank you for reading!

 

A+

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