JoyNote Hardcover Executive Notebook

Bullet Journal Notebook Review


Key Features:

  • Size: 8.25″ x 5.75″  |  210mm x 145mm — true A5 size. Also available in A6.
  • Cover: hard cover, fabric/linen with contrasting spine color
  • Binding: sewn
  • Pages: 192
  • Additional features:  2 bookmarks, pen loop on spine, back pocket, elastic closure
  • Page styles available:  lined (college 7mm ruled), but dots and blank are coming soon
  • Paper Quality: 100gsm light cream paper
  • Ghosting? minimal ghosting
  • Bleeding?  no bleed through
  • Feathering? no feathering

My Review:

When I first spotted this journal on Amazon, I was intrigued. The style and construction looked exactly like the beloved Lemome Classic Notebook but with some beautiful color options. The paper inside is different, but this is clearly made by the same manufacturer, just with a different brand name. So of course, I needed to buy it and find out what was going on!

COVER – The cover is a soft linen fabric and the spine is made from the same material but is in a contrasting/coordinating color. I chose gray and pink, but the aqua and orange or the denim blue and red are also tempting. There are also cover options with a suede leather finish (navy and orange or black and red options are beautiful). The notebook is available in either A5 or A6 sizes.

PAPER – Right now the only option is a lined journal for paper style (which is fine with me since I love lines best). But because I knew you guys would want to know about the dot-grid option, I asked. There’s a bit of a language barrier, but here’s the answer I received:

Other designs with unlined, dot grid design are at designing and producing now. After finishing, we will put them into producing.Other page design will be available in the future.

There are 192 lined pages in this book. The lines are a light gray so aren’t too intrusive to your writing needs. At the top of each page is a space to write the date. The pages are not numbered. Paper is light cream – nearly white – and has a smooth writing surface. The heavy weight paper – 100gsm – holds up well to almost every pen I threw at it with no bleed-through on any of the pens I used (not even the fountain pen or super wet Bic rollerball pen). The ghosting is heavier than I’d expect for 100gsm paper, but it’s not horrible and if you’re using a standard Micron fineliner or a fine gel ink pen like Pilot – then you’ll be fine.

FEATURES – There’s a full pocket in the back (larger than most notebooks because the flap goes all the way to the inner spine) and cut into that pocket is a business card slot. That slot would be especially useful to store a small ruler or one of those little card-sized stencils I carry with me. The elastic closure band (same shade of pink as the spine) is a bit wimpy – it’s very stretchy and doesn’t secure the book closed in the way I would expect. The pen loop on the spine is a bit tight, but I suspect it’ll loosen up as you use it more. The way to slide a pen in that loop is to add the pen while the book is open so you have more space to play with.

CONCLUSION – overall I really love this journal. I like the color combination (it’s tough to find a sophisticated shade of pink in the journaling world) and I like the feel of the fabric cover. The paper is nice and I even enjoy the date spot at the top of each page since I usually create daily page spreads in my bullet journal. And you can’t beat that price!

I’ll be stalking their Amazon page to watch for that dot grid to come out and alert you when it happens. Try this journal – you’ll love it too.

Buy on Amazon