50 Sheets A4 160gsm White Card - Premium Thick Printing Paper Suitable for All Printers

Product Information

I didn’t think about it like that in terms of manufacturing (I don’t know much about that process), but I have other cloth cover journals with a metallic debossed design (Baron Fig) that are not similar at all to A&O’s designs. For me personally, QiHeng’s designs just still seem just too similar to A&O for me to be comfortable with them. Buke Notebooks– The paper in Buke is smooth and it’s a pleasure to write on. Plus it passes the feathering test. No problems at all here. Ahhh… art supplies! This is where things get real! You know that a major part of the marketing efforts from these companies claim that 160gsm paper in their notebooks stands up to the “no bleed” test with all sorts of pens and art supplies. Hold on there, cowboy! This nerd doesn’t believe your hype! Featuring an excellent 160 CIE whiteness, this A3 paper will ensure that the results are vibrant and eye catching every time you print. Specifically designed to reduce ink blot, it will provide you with a level of colour separation and clarity that cannot be beaten. For businesses wishing to enhance their green credentials, CCW0350 paper is EU-Eco Label certified and CO² neutral. And this is where I get to play with toys! I dug out my magnifying glass, to begin with, but that just didn’t give me the amount of magnification I wanted to examine how the ink behaves on the paper. I’ve also got a jeweler’s loop that has 60x magnification. Wow! This thing is amazing and it lets me see clearly how the ink behaves with amazing detail. You should have seen me trying to finagle my camera to line up with that tiny eyepiece. But I did it! Anything for you guys! FOUNTAIN PEN & FEATHERING TEST WINNER

So I dug through my craft room (remember the huge Craft Room Cleanup from last spring?) and pulled out art supplies that should work in these journals …. Along with a few supplies that I knew were going to likely fail. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised at the results. This QiHeng has the same luxurious feeling of Archer & Olive and Tekukor with the linen cover and metal hot-stamped emblem. It’s a notebook that costs half the price of the most expensive options in this review but the quality is equal when it comes to the actual construction of the notebook. The hot-stamp emblem on the front is durable and holds up to my fingernail scratch test. There’s also no problem with the notebook lying flat when open. Dylusions Distress Ink – diluted with water – same as above, but this time I diluted it slightly with water to see if that made a difference. First, it was 100gsm paper, then it was 120gsm paper… and now everyone is going nuts over 160gsm paper. There are only a couple of the well-known brands who carry a notebook or journal with dotted 160gsm paper and those companies have gotten a LOT of coverage in the blogosphere.For sure, you have often heard people saying that the higher the GSM, the better. However, let us tell you that this is NOT necessarily true. GSM is not used to measure quality. It is only used to measure paper weight and nothing more. Technical—a certain special technique such as a foil stamp or a die-cut won’t work with all papers, and some books may need heavier paper to suit the binding Please be aware that this information should only be used as a guide because relative gsm/mic can vary from one brand of paper to another and there can even be some minor variation in different production batches of the same type of paper). Uncoated Paper (also referred to as Bond, Offset or Laser) Then there’s the one really tough fountain pen ink I threw into the testing mix that half of the notebooks failed. Except when I say “fail” I really just mean they got an A- instead of an A.

QiHeng– this line of journals have both linen and PU leather options for the cover. Each one has an emblem on the front. The linen-cover options are a bit creepy-crawly, right? You choose between an ant and a spider. The PU leather options have more emblems to choose from – owl, fox, bear, or squirrel, each with their own color choice.Silver Medal Winners– Buke Notebooks and Eclectic Scribbles did very well too. Besides the two art supplies that were thrown out, each only had two major problems with bleed-through. Buke failed with dye ink and Sharpie Marker, Eclectic Scribbles failed with Sharpie Marker, fountain pen ink and a little bit of the Dylusions Distress Ink. Buke performed a tiny bit better than Eclectic Scribbles. As a unit of measure, GSM connects the wood pulp producers (who sell by weight) with the paper mills (who work on area). Generally, the higher the GSM the more wood pulp is required to produce the paper. For example, one square metre of 400gsm board will use much more wood pulp than a square metre of 100gsm paper. My favorite part of this whole thing was this part! I love getting my fingers all messy with paint and ink – it felt more like playing than working. Although, is reviewing stationery supplies really “work” …. Ha! Probably not. Buke Notebooks– this is the only notebook brand in this review that has an option both hardcover and softcover versions. All of the covers have the embossed gold owl on the front and you have several color options to choose from.

In the next section, there’s a line on the chart that talks about the cover options, but I wanted to mention that in more detail here. So the only way I was able to rate these notebooks from best to worst in this category was to take into account the two alcohol markers and the Noodler’s 54th Massachusetts fountain pen ink. We’ll judge those markers again in the art supply section. PEN TEST WINNER

I almost didn’t include this section because it’s more subjective than it is information based on hard-hitting research. But I’m going to chatter on anyway. Archer & Olive

Eclectic Scribbles– this notebook comes in three design options – Mandala (the one I bought), Zentangle, and Steampunk Cat – all of which were designed by Amanda. Her artwork is beautiful and being able to see it on a journal is a great bonus. See, if I take out the 2 alcohol markers from the list then there’s nothing left to “compare” because all these notebooks did just fine with all these pens. There’s virtually no ghosting in any of the notebooks.Here is where we begin the rating portion of this comparison. In each notebook, I tested 16 different writing pens. These are the types of brands you’d expect to use in a normal bullet journal or standard long-form journaling notebook. Fineliners, gel pens, ballpoint, fountain pen inks, highlighters, and calligraphy brush markers. Here’s the list. SUPPLY LIST Paper weight has a huge impact on the overall look and feel of your print materials as well as the buying decisions of your customers. They help make a statement. For instance, you want your business cards to be professional, vibrant, impactful, and sturdy. Thus, you should use paper with a higher GSM to achieve this goal. Once I had those two art supply results covered up, the judging was a lot easier. What I came up with was Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners. Two equal winners in Gold and SIlver, one winner in Bronze. There is also an option for PU leather covers with various emblems on the front – I haven’t tested the durability of this other style but I am going to assume it’s the same as the linen cover version. I mean if I’m not wrong, the original few designs that A&O came out with are the bee, the moon and stars, and the Big Dipper, and the fact that QiHeng has an ant instead of a bee and a different constellation instead of the Big Dipper just seems to be getting into an intellectual/creative property grey area for me. QiHeng even has a squirrel design on a leather-like cover that is pretty close to the design of Dingbats notebooks.