Quo Vadis | Travellers Notebook Times

This is my first Van der Spek Codex. The Codex is a leather notebook/planner cover. It comes in a variety of sizes for different types of planners and notebooks. It is available in several ‘pre-set’ sizes, but Van der Spek can make it to more or less any size you want.

This one is an A5 (page size 210×148 mm), I will be using it with my Quo Vadis Daily 21 day per page planner that I use as my journal. The paper on the Daily 21 is excellent and works with fountain pen without any bleed through.

My Van der Spek A5 Codex arrived last week in a lovely presentation box that all their products now come in.

This is the A5 Codex. I went for Black ‘Janet Leather’ on the outside with Red ‘Janet Leather on the inside with red stitching on the inside and outside.

Janet Leather is a traditional full grain vegetable tanned leather that I have in a few other of my planners and covers. It is of high quality leather and has a variety of textures depending where on the hide the parts are cut from.

However, Van der Spek will always try to match all the parts from the same part of the hide, so there isn’t a massive variation in textures and colour shades in the finished item.

The internal design of this particular Codex is fairly standard. I decided not to have the full width back pocket as I don’t use that pocket on my current Gillio Appunto A5.

I also went for my preferred internal layout of just three card slots, with two horizontal slip pockets on the front inside cover.

I have this in several other Van der Spek planners, so much so that Petra Van der Spek calls it the ‘Steve Morton’ layout!

On the rear inside cover there is a shallow horizontal slip pocket as well as an elasticated pen loop.

There is also the full height vertical slip pockets, on both sides which is where your notebook or planner covers slide in to.

One other feature of the design of this Codex is the square rather than rounded corners on the cover.

As a special honour Petra also included the Van der Spek logo on the inside of the cover.

The Quo Vadis Daily 21 is a perfect fit. I tend to only insert the rear cover because it is quite a bulky journal, being a day per page format. The front vertical pocket is then free to be used for any paper ephemera I come across during the year that I want to save.

This is my Quo Vadis Daily 21 – 2020 edition, ready for the new year.

I omitted having book marks in the Codex because the Daily 21 has one bound in to the spine of the journal.

I really like the contrast between the black leather and the red stitching, shown here on the clasp attachment to the rear of the cover.

My Lamy Logo fountain pen fits the pen loop perfectly.

This in the format of the Daily 21, it is fairly simple. I don’t fill all of the page every day, but it gives me plenty of space to jot in details of what I’ve been doing each day. I’ve been using this format since about 2013. I wrote a review about this planner on Plannerisms.

Thank you to Petra Van der Spek and the team at Van der Spek for making this excellent cover for me to use next year. I’m really looking forward to trying it out and using it every day.

For more information about Van der Spek and their full range of products visit their website, please see the links below.

Web Site: http://www.vdsshop.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/VDSleathergoods
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vanderspekorganiserfans/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vdsshop/

Huge thanks again to Steve of Philofaxy for this guest post on his new Quo Vadis Habana Daily 21 day per page diary! Originally published on Plannerisms.

Hello again, I’m making a bit of a habit of appearing on Laurie’s blog!

Anyway following on from my quick review of the Exacompta Journal 21 that I received from Quo Vadis USA, for 2014. I started to get pangs for wanting something similar for 2013. Yes I know it’s a bit late, but I was sure that there would be something still around in May.

After seeking Laurie’s advice, she suggested the Habana Daily 21, again about A5 in size and also day per page which was what I was looking for. Again like the Journal 21 I will be using this as my journal not as a planner. Keeping the two functions separate really helps having two different formats in terms of layout and in my case ring bound and bound… best of both worlds may be.

Luckily Quo Vadis in UK still had some stock left and the shipping cost wasn’t too outrageous so I just bit the bullet and ordered one. I could find some alternatives in France which might have been cheaper, but not Quo Vadis, so as I’m a bit inexperienced in this area I thought I would stick with the recommendation.

The diary arrived nicely packaged on Friday and I offered to do this review before I start writing in it.

The cover is quite thick, so it should offer good protection to the pages over time. In my case it will sit on my desk most of the time. It has an elastic closure band similar to the Rhodia Web notebooks. And the year and QV symbol are embossed in to the surface. The cover is also available in red, orange as well as black.

A sort of title page greets you when you open up the diary with details about the company and contact details in French and English.

Following on there is a page for tabulating school holidays and noting your personal details, addresses and emergency contact details. The bulk of the diary is in 6 languages, fortunately for me they are in the order, English, French then Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch. The first two being the most familiar for me thank goodness! I will let you decide how they decided the order, may be it was a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest!

The next double spread is a 2013 year planner, this includes the week numbers.

We then go in to month planners with two months per page, the symbols indicating phases of the moon.

Then we get in to the daily pages, each double spread is in the same layout through out. The actual day, date and month at the top. Then times from 8am to 9pm down the left hand side with lines ruled in half-hourly intervals. In the bottom right hand corner of the right hand page is a small monthly calendar . Bank holidays are also indicated at the top of the page in a small font so as to not intrude in to the page. Again all six languages are used at the top of the page, but again I’m happy with the layout because English and French are in the top line of this group.

The week numbers appear as a printed tab on the right hand page. Not shown but there is a ribbon page marker that is attached to the spine of the diary. Additionally the bottom corner of each page is perforated, so you can remove the corners as you progress through the year. Having both of these will prove useful to me which I will explain in a moment.

The diary finishes on 1 January 2014, they haven’t learnt the trick of including a notes page where 29th February would be as in the Journal 21. Not shown but there is then a 2014 year planner, in the same format as the one at the front of the diary.

We then get some information pages. The first is International Telephone Access Codes, followed by a list of International Holidays

We then have a conversion tables page. And then we start in the maps section with some coloured maps of all the European countries, leading off with France and its dependants.

The maps are of a decent size and not cluttered. Other continents are included, Africa, North and South America, Asia, Oceania

Finally there is a Time Zones map in the last page of the diary

Also included is a removable contact booklet

This tucks in to a reasonable size gusseted pocket which is fixed to the back cover. I expect you can use this for keeping receipts and such like.

So that concludes the make up of this diary, it’s quite a sizeable book, but one I think I am going to enjoy writing in. The paper is silky smooth and I can’t wait to start using it.

So far this year I’ve been recording some notes each day in a separate diary insert in my A5 Filofax, but it is a Week on Two pages format. What I’m intending to do with the Daily 21 is to swap over to it for the remainder of the year. But I will most probably transfer my dairy notes from the Filofax insert to the Daily 21, but that will obviously take some time to do.

So I’m thinking of using the ribbon page maker to show the current day. And I will take the corners off of the pages to show my progress on transferring my diary across from the Filofax to the Daily 21.

I’m sure having a separate book and a bigger page format will encourage me to write more down each day, it will also encourage me to keep my desk a little tidier so I can have both my Filofax planner open and my diary open at the same time! Using this diary for the remainder of the year will get me ready for 2014 when I hope I will have learnt a lot about keeping a journal and it will become quite an enjoyable pastime.

Again thank you to Laurie for the recommendation and for letting me do the guest post. I will pop back and answer any questions if there are any.

Steve

PS Laurie here: just wanted to let you know that Quo Vadis UK ships worldwide, so even if you’re not in Europe you can get these European planners/ diaries at http://www.quovadis-diaries.co.uk/ and you can click here to see their remaining 2013 diaries.

Many thanks again to Steve for this excellent guest post!