Midori MD Notebook - A5 Grid Paper

Product Information

Let your pen dance over page as inspiration flows like ink, capturing your thoughts with impossible grace. The finial of the barrel has O sharpe moulded into it and the finial of the cap is a simple smooth rounded piece of metal. Shading has some high contrast and frequency with a sudden gradient but the dark shaded areas dominate.

The packaging describes it as “Medium thickness - ideal for everyday writing such as diaries, letters and sketching your ideas”. The Notebook, that was sent to me by The Pen World in India, is full featured and without burying the lede too much it is definitely fountain pen friendly. It also comes with index stickers which you can add to the spine of your notebook to easily identify it. This means that the paper doesn’t quite handle Pushkin as well as Tomoe River (52gsm ro 68gsm) but still isn’t bad. The type with lines has a thick line at the center so that you can divide each page in half or divide a two-page spread into quarters.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. When opened near the centre it is dead flat; when opened with a bias to one side it is still very flat. Capture each day in the pages of your own unique journal, and then look back on everything you’ve written and drawn. The grid type has 5mm squares with gaps in between, like the old genko yoshi used for writing in Japan. This is because the additional paper or cover on a standard notebook makes the notebook more difficult to open, or causes wobbling, which interferes with your writing comfort.

More on the bleeding later but the feathering only really shows where one line crosses another (for example at the bottom right part of the capital N in ‘Noodler’s’. With an understated yet unique design, the MD Pencil extends the MD Notebook bring the experience to your fingertips. In this binding the mull (the string thatched fabric - Midori uses the alternative term “super”) is glued over the top of the case rather than underneath and over the book signatures (Midori uses the alternative term “quire”). It pairs well with fountain pens and rollerballs thanks to its bleed-resistant and feather-resistant qualities. Again you can tell Midori is aiming this pen at those unfamiliar with fountain pens and possibly those coming from ballpoints where you do need to press harder.

The reason given for this, which makes perfect practical sense, is so that the book opens easier and lays flatter. The Midori MD Lined A5 Notebook comes with a green ribbon bookmark (unlike the orange for the diary) and is a seven millimetre lined book defied into four sections in two-page spread. With the square shape and pristine look of a block of tofu, this memo block consisting only of MD PAPER has a clean look that will never look out of place. The ink presents as a very rich blue that leans a little more to the teal side of the blue spectrum.