The folks at Cool Material sent me a nice batch of their recently introduced “Word.” notebooks. These are a staple-bound notebook in the vein of Field Notes and the Moleskine cahiers, but with a unique page format.

First impressions:
I love the cover designs, in cool colors and camouflage patterns. They came packaged very beautifully in a box with brown crinkly paper filler, and I think I actually said “ooh!” when I opened it up!

The covers feed sturdy and the whole notebook seems well-made. The staples are aligned correctly on the spine, and nothing is crooked, except for the corners, which are nicely rounded but cut a bit diagonally in some cases, as if the notebook slipped a bit while the corners were being cut. The corners are rounded to a larger diameter than Field Notes or Moleskine.

Inside the front cover there is space for identifying info, and a guide to how the page layout is meant to be used. The designers of these notebooks meant for them to be used to help manage task lists. Each page has 18 lines with a dotted circle at the left. You can indicate the status and importance of the task by circling or slashing the circle. It’s a pretty simple system, and not original to this notebook (see here for one example) but for those who like to manage their task lists this way, it will be handy to have a preformatted page that makes it easier.
The inside back cover has a list of fun facts, just to fill space, I guess.

The paper feels great to write on, nice and smooth. Most of my usual pens worked beautifully, though the Pilot fountain pen seemed to feather out a bit. Bleed-through was slightly worse than average for most pens, though for some reason, the Super Sharpie, always the worst bleeder of all, bled slightly less than I would have expected. Show-through was about average. The paper is acid-free.

The format on these is a standard 3.5 x 5.5″, shown below next to a pocket hardcover Moleskine.

At $9.99 for a 3-pack, these are priced in line with the competition. If you are a list-maker, check them out– you can buy them at Word. Notebooks | Cool Material.

And of course you can also try your luck in the giveaway. I will select 3 lucky winners from entries received in the following ways:
On Twitter, tweet something containing “@coolmaterial” and “@NotebookStories, and follow “@coolmaterial” and “@NotebookStories.”

On Facebook, “like” the  Notebook Stories page  and the Cool Material page, and post something containing the words “Word Notebook” on the Notebook Stories wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Word Notebook” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this blog.

The deadline for entry is Friday May 10 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner.