Let’s take a quick break away from Traveler’s Notebooks and take a look at one of my favorite fountain pen friendly notebooks, the Venzi Soft.
Venzi is part of a line of Victoria ‘s Journals and notebooks brand from Hong Kong. They do the fabulous Copelle line of notebooks as well, which would be one of daily carry notebooks if it wasn’t so monstrously thick!
The Venzi Soft retails at National Bookstore for about P200 (approximately US$ 4.5), so it’s one of the most competitively priced fp-friendly notebooks out there.
I’ve tried them with fairly medium to wet pens and only the wettest pens bleed through. Brush pens work great, too!
The paper is 70 gsm- quite thin, so it’s amazing that they hold up so well. Perhaps the smooth coating has something to do with it- although it’s not ultra-smooth, it certainly doesn’t have the rough pulpy feel that you get from most Korean notebooks (I’m not a fan of Korean notebooks, as they tend to be very bleed-y despite being so cute).
Anyway, these come in both lined and unlined versions. They tend to go out of stock relatively quickly, so grab them while you can!
- PAGES: 192
- size: A5 (A6 also available)
- PAPER RULE BLANK
- COLOR: CREAM
- COVER: BLACK W/ PINK TRIMMING
This is a pink edition. Other color options with black covers include red, blue, and orange, or you can get green, red, blue-green, or black cover colors.
I’ve hoarded a few years’ worth of these little beauties. I use them to make thumbnail sketches and quick notes with my fountain pens.
I hope some of you can check them out! If you use fountain pens, make sure you get the Venzi SOFT, not the Venzi FLEXY (which looks very similar) as the latter bleeds much more.