Paper
Most notebook covers are made to survive a pocket. A RO-BIKI cover is made to be changed by one. The wax is the reason, and it is worth understanding before you buy.
At a glance
Maker: Yamamoto Paper
Place: Japan
Cover: Waxed paper, printed after waxing
Inside: Faint dot grid
Format: Pocket size, rounded corners
Price: £6
What wax does to paper
Waxed paper has a long working history in Japan, used for wrapping, for weatherproofing and for lining. Yamamoto Paper takes that material and uses it as a notebook cover, which changes how the printing behaves.
Ink does not sit on a waxed surface the way it sits on ordinary card. It is pulled down into the sheet, so the print loses its flatness and the surface comes to read almost like cloth. The wax also takes colour unevenly, absorbing more in some patches than others. On the Lighthouse cover this gives the ochre ground a mottled depth. On Mountain Night it leaves the grey sky patchy in a way no commercial printer would sign off.
That unevenness is the point. It is the difference between a cover that was printed and a cover that was made.
It is supposed to wear
The cover is soft enough to curl in a pocket, and it will. It creases along the fold lines your hand makes. It scuffs at the corners. It darkens where it is held. After a few months it looks like a notebook that belongs to a specific person rather than one taken from a shelf.
If you want a notebook that stays as it arrived, this is the wrong one. If you want the object to record its own use, there are few better at any price.
The Hokusai cover
One of the three is worth describing on its own. It carries Hokusai's view of Fuji from Kanaya, on the old Tokaido road, where the river had no bridge and travellers were carried across on the shoulders of porters. The mountain sits at the top under its snow line. Below it, dozens of figures wade into blue water holding palanquins and baggage above their heads.
The scene runs over the spine and continues across the back, so the village and its thatched roofs end up on the side nobody photographs. Each figure is a couple of millimetres across and every one of them is doing something. It is a great deal of image to put on a six pound notebook.
Why dot grid
The inside is dot grid rather than ruled, and faint. Lines tell you to write. A faint dot grid leaves room for notes, a sketch, a diagram or a list without making you choose in advance, and it disappears under a drawing in a way ruled lines never do.
For anyone who both writes and draws, this is the ruling to give them.
Who it suits
People who carry a notebook rather than store one. Anyone in the habit of losing thoughts between a meeting and a desk. It also works as a first step into Japanese stationery for somebody who has never bought any, because at six pounds there is nothing to weigh up.
As a small gift it does something a more expensive notebook cannot. Nobody feels obliged to keep it pristine, so it gets used.
See the RO-BIKI waxed pocket notebooks
What is a RO-BIKI notebook?
A pocket notebook made by Yamamoto Paper in Japan with a waxed paper cover and a faint dot grid inside. The wax absorbs print unevenly, so each cover has its own mottling.
Will the cover get damaged in a pocket?
It will crease, scuff and darken, which is the intention rather than a fault. The block itself holds together well in ordinary daily carrying.
Is dot grid better than lined paper?
For mixed use, yes. Dot grid supports writing, lists, diagrams and sketching without committing the page to one of them.
Can I write on it with a fountain pen?
Japanese notebook paper is generally well suited to fountain pens, since the mills there make smooth, tightly finished sheets. As with any thin paper, a very wet nib will show through more than a fine one.