LIFE Notebook A5

"Producing stationery, creating culture" - under this motto, the Tokyo-based company LIFE Stationery has been producing stationery since 1949, primarily notebooks, writing pads and stationery. And even though they are "merely" articles for everyday use, the focus during production is on the quality of paper and design. The handmade papers meet the highest standards of functionality and feel. The fine, smooth uncoated paper absorbs ink from fountain pens and ballpoint pens with just as much contour as from the fine-lead pens commonly used in Japan. But also with graphite pens a clean typeface is created.

For this notebook in A5 format, four thread-bound notebooks made of chamois-colored uncoated paper (grammage 85 g/sqm) are joined together with black fabric pleated ribbon. It is available in blank or with a discreet, margin-falling ruler in ruled or squared.

The outstanding characteristics and undisputed extraordinarily high quality of Japanese stationery have partly to do with the fact that Japanese writing is difficult to mechanise on a typewriter. The first typewriters were introduced at the beginning of the last century. In addition to Japanese syllable writing the Chinese characters called “Kanji” are common in Japan. The Kanji prove to be exceptionally difficult to reproduce. Until the introduction of the personal computer in the office, it was customary therefore to write business correspondence by hand, and one used the best stationery available to leave a good impression. The passion for extraordinary stationery has survived in Japan even if it is not used for official correspondence anymore. For daily notes, a paper like the lined note paper offered here is put to use. It‘s thread-sewn and features a spine reinforced with black and gold embossed spine tape. An obscure, if amusing side remark: By printing “containing best-ruled foolscap” the Japanese manufacturer came a cropper. Because none of these notebooks is in foolscap, the traditional Anglo-Saxon paper format somewhat larger than DIN A4.