I was going to ask - why are these better than moleskin notebooks?
I touched on it in the post above. The large (almost A5 - Mokeskines are based on US paper sizes for some reason) Mokeskine has a list price of $20 (I see them as low as $12 on Amazon, though), which is admittedly a lot to pay for a notebook. The larger Hobonichi is around $10 more. A5 Rhodia, Quo Vadis, Leuchtturm 1917, or Franklin-Christoph (all super nice notebooks) are between $20-30. At that price, you should expect something really damn nice. With each of those, you are getting extremely high quality paper that does not feather or bleed. The big failing with Mokeskine is that the paper is really awful, and it's awful in an inconsistent way. It's very fibrous, so inks feather and bleed like crazy. Fountain pens look and feel like crap and darker markers or even rollerblading (this autocorrect is too good to change! Should be ROLLERBALL) pens bleed and ghost on the back of each sheet. As was noted by another poster, the rough paper means that pencils throw off a lot of tiny lead bits, so things tend to smear on the pages (I still like how pencils feel on the paper). Beyond that, they are cheaply made for something at that price - the elastic goes limp, the binding is cheap. It's not like it's a disaster and they fall apart in your hands, but they are sold as a premium item at a premium price and I think they bank more on the phony "THE LEGENDARY NOTEBOOK OF PICASSO AND BRUCE CHATWIN" tagline than on actual quality.
The Hobonichi uses Tomoe River paper which feels great to write on, is very thin, yet handles even the wettest inks with no problems. There is minimal ghosting for paper that thin. The bindings are sewn so the book lays flat...the whole thing is just wonderfully designed and put together and hat immediately comes through.
As to using any other notebook instead of this one, it comes down to a huge degree of personal preference in a planner/diary/sketchbook. The Hobonichi notebooks have some structure - pages are dated, there is a quote on each page, there are a few markings for the time of day, most of the space is grid ruled. You could obviously buy a nice notebook with grid ruling and put the elements you want on each page. Or you can find more structured planners, with each day more explicitly broken into hours. I guess I like the page-a-day setup, with just a few elements already in place. It encourages a certain style of use that a lot of people find pleasing. I keep a blank notebook as a journal too, generally for longer entries about bigger stuff in my life. The Hobonichi encourages a bit more economy in what you record and a slightly less SUPER SERIOUS TONE (that may only apply to me). I also find myself adding drawings, calligraphy, ticket stubs, etc. way more often in the hobonichi. They just sort of inspire a mixed media approach in me.
I always write way too much, huh?
So basically it is quality of materials (particularly paper, but the cases are super great too), format, and whatever intangible element that makes me use the Hobonichi differently than I do any of the other zillion notebooks I own (maybe it's partly the community - both here on GAF and across the internet. It's fun to see how other people use their Hobonichis).
I hope someone else will take a swing at answering your question! People who pick up a Hobonichi seem to kind of get hooked on them and it's hard to say what exactly it is that makes them so damn pleasing!
Went in on a fountain pen too. This bloody thread... 😅
Which one?? Pilot Kakuno?
A fountain pen on Tomoe River just feels super good! And inks look fantastic on the paper - sheen is really maximized. The drying time does increase so watch out!
I hope to have a new fountain pen thread ready by the end of the year!
