Midori MD Notebook - A5 Grid Paper

Product Information

It is designed to match the sizes of books, with the glassine paper wrapped like the dust jacket of old books to add to the effect while also keeping the pages clean. The 1 day 1 page type comes in two styles: a blank type with a frame for the title or date, and a dot grid type with an unobtrusive dotted grid. The folded card provides some legal and practical warnings and instructions as well as tips and explanations for new fountain pen users.

The writing in the wet Broad and Medium nibs bleeds through to the page on the other side of the leaf fairly strongly with weaker bleeding still happening in parts of the rest of the nibs. It might not feel like a premium fountain pen but it does its just very well and has a very appreciable aesthetic. The notebook features MD PAPER, their original paper that prevents smearing and bleed-through for comfortable writing, especially for fountain pen fanatics. The body is a simple tapered piece of plastic with a plug at the end all made in the same off-white colour. The lines are printed in subtle hues (pale gray for ruled and light blue for grid) that won’t distract you when writing.

It absorbs your hand oils and picks up distinctive scuff marks and scratches that showcase the way you use the notebook. These products, while certainly something you can place into a bag and take with you, work nicely sitting on the desktop waiting to be used. As a result, the paper is bleed-resistant, feather-resistant, and fountain-pen friendly, giving the user a pleasant writing experience. And since a notebook is a common place for those observations, we wanted to make sure that our notebook would be kept close at hand.

With a rough-hewn, honest charm to it, Midori strips the notebook back to its essence for a pure writing experience.There is not even a cover as such: the spine is protected by a simple strip of cloth tape, which is hidden in 'normal' notebooks, and you can even see where the page marker has been secured! The longer stickers can be used to label the spine, and a bookplate can be used to add details like who the notebook belongs to. MD paper has been developed since the 1960s and is high quality fountain pen friendly paper which prevents smearing and bleed through. Midori developed its MD paper in the 1960s and is the originator of the traveller's notebook (now known as Traveler's Company). Choose from two types of MD Notebook Journal: 1 day 1 page and the new weekly journal, with one week per two-page spread.

Some created original graphics expressing what the word “ideas” means to them, while others expressed their ideas with rough drawings.The MD Notebook is wrapped in a paraffin paper wrapper like a dust jacket and comes with index tabs that coordinate perfectly with the coverless design and exposed spine. Additionally, the nib is the same as that found on the MD Fountain Pen, and we found that it has a more tactile sensation on the paper than other nibs of the same tip size.

We should note that users who want to keep the pen pristine should be careful when dipping the pen in ink, as the barrel is easy to stain.This cotton paper (which I will probably review soon in its notepad version) is much more white (though still slightly off white). As mentioned the paper is a moderately textured paper (even though Midori describes it as “rough-textured” - I think this is wrong as there are much more highly textures papers out there). While the brass fountain pen of Traveler’s Company is small and robust, this MD Fountain Pen is more stayed and restrained (and obviously not as hardy as brass). I think elements from this 60s colour theme work well with Japanese design that is often associated with minimalism.