Tag Archives: Review

Letts Travel Journal – Review

At Plannercon Europe this year I was given amongst many other things, a Letts Travel Journal. I’ve only recently had a chance to take it out of the packet and look at it in more detail. I’m glad I did because it will prove very useful for me when travelling around Europe.

The journal measures 130 mm by 200 mm which isn’t an ISO page size, but that matters less when it is a bound book. It’s not too big and not too small. It is fairly close to A5 in dimensions. The covers are card hard covers, so it will slip neatly in to your bag or backpack and it should be rugged enough to survive many journeys.

The journal is made up of 192 pages of 90 gsm paper and they claim it to be fountain pen friendly. The paper is very nice to the touch and it is stitch bound.

The introduction page gives you background to Letts of London which is one of the oldest companies still in the book binding business, they also claim to be the first commercial diary makers.

The personal notes page contains the usual headings for you to fill in as you wish.

There is then some contents pages, the main pages are numbered, so a contents/index pages will prove useful in coming years for finding your notes about specific trips.

This is one of the main journal pages, they are nicely lined with essential headings only. I personally prefer lined pages, my writing and hand/eye co-ordination doesn’t work well on blank pages for writing anything approaching ‘neatly’

After 148 journal pages there is a 12 month year planner spread over 4 pages. This isn’t year specific, so there are no days against the dates.

The city information is quite comprehensive covering most of the major cities in the world. You could of course add in information about the towns/cities you are going to be visiting in your travels.

A World Time Zone map is always helpful when it comes to knowing what time it is at ‘home’ before you try to telephone home only to later realise it is 03:30am!

There is some conversion/information/clothing size information on a couple of pages followed by Expenses pages. Useful for business travellers.

Dates to remember could be used for recording information you need to remember whilst you are away, or to provide an overview of your travel plans. It’s a flexible enough layout that you could use it as you wish.

We all meet people on our travels, my memory for names is terrible (old age!) so these pages will be useful for remembering who it was I chatted with in a bar/restaurant or on the train on that trip 6 months ago!

There are then some notes pages on un-numbered pages.

And finally in the back cover there is a slip pocket that you can use to save tickets or other paper ephemera from our travels.

Overall I’m very pleased with this journal and thank you to Letts of London for this sample.

 

Gillio Appunto – B6 size

Gillio introduced the B6 size Appunto at PlannerCon Europe at the end of October 2017. At the time it was only available in five stock colours. It quickly sold out, not surprising really! Today (13 November 2018) Gillio are restocking some of those colours and introducing some new colours and colour combinations too.

I was lucky to receive this B6 in Dark Brown(772) with Yellow(771) on the interior. It’s great combination and I really like the contrast stitching.

The internal layout of the B6 is the same as my A5 Appunto that I recently reviewed. So there was no big surprises when I opened the B6 Appunto box.

So if you aren’t familiar with the Appunto, let’s take a quick tour.

Externally you could easily mistake this for a ring bound Gillio organiser. However, the bookmarks and the positioning of the elasticated pen loop give it away a little as being something different.

Internally the pocket layout on the inside front cover is very practical with full height vertical slip pockets and six credit card/business card pockets. Plus a business card pocket at the foot.

On the inside back cover there is a zip pocket and a half height secretarial flap pocket as well as the pen loop. Being placed higher up it will not suit all pens, I’ve managed to find a few that I already own though that fit this pen loop without too many issues.

This new B6 Appunto has been made slightly wider than the original release version. Full details about this change are in the video from Mella (see below)

B6 is bigger than A6, but as you can see below smaller than A5, it is an in-between size.

Shopping for B6 planners/notebooks is a bit of a voyage of discovery. You need to pay special attention to the size of the books you are buying.

True B6 is 125mm by 176mm high. The B6 Appunto easily takes this size of notebook with a bit of spare space.

The photograph below is a Muji Notebook, these are quite thin, but they are exactly B6 size.

I also discovered to my surprise I had an unused un-dated planner from Exacompta Forum Journal in the cupboard. This is a page per day journal/planner which is close to B6 size.

This one fits perfectly.

Undated page per day Journal.

I also looked on-line and discovered this Collins B6 notebook.

It fits very nicely in the B6 Appunto. It actually measures 183mm in height which I would say is approaching the limit of the size that will fit the B6 Appunto.

The pages are nice and simple in layout with rounded corners as well.

During my on-line search I also came across a B6+ series of notebooks by Leuchtturm 1917, these are the same width as B6 but taller. I didn’t order one because they are listed as being 190mm high, which I feel might be too high for the B6 Appunto, and the covers would need some trimming to fit the Appunto pockets.

So please Gillio, if you are thinking of further revising the B6 Auppunto a few extra mm in height would open it up to many more notebooks and planners in the market place. What you can easily buy will depend on where you are in the world, but I don’t see the point in importing things across continents because it becomes expensive in shipping and import duty costs.

Overall I find that the B6 size is a very practical size for planning or note taking, not too big and not too small.

Thank you to Gillio for supplying the sample of the B6 Appunto for review.


 

Further information: 

Gillio – IIC bvba
Breedveld 2 unit 7
1651 LOT (Beersel)
Belgium

Tel: +32 (0)2 380 63 19

Email: helpdesk@gillio.eu
Website: https://www.gillio.be
Facebook page: Gillio Firenze
Facebook groupGillio Firenze
Instagram: @GillioFirenze

 

William Hannah Pocket Notebook Cover

The company William Hannah Ltd will be a new one to a lot of people in the Travellers Notebook community, but the company has been making disc-bound notebook/planner covers for a few years. These covers have been very well received and are finished to a very high standard by artisans in England using Italian vegetable dyed leather hides.

Their A5 and A6 disc-bound notebook covers have been reviewed over on Philofaxy links to those reviews are here if you are interested in finding out more about those:

However, today I’m reviewing a new Pocket Notebook cover. Once again it is made from the finest Italian vegetable dyed leather hides and finished to the same high standard.

The Pocket Notebook comes in a stylish black presentation gift box with the WH logo embossed in to the front surface, the box is a clam shell design and it just increases the anticipation when opening it for the first time.

The first time I saw this packaging with the A5 notebook back in 2016 I thought about what it would be like to receive such a package as a gift. The receiver would have no clue what was in their surprise gift package!

Continue reading