I love stories about notebook fans who turn to producing their own dream notebooks when they can’t find them anywhere else! Justin Woo wrote to me with his own tale of how the Object Series notebook was born:

“I had never come across a notebook I was actively searching for: black, flexible leather cover with gilded edges and minimal branding in the $10-20 price range.

So instead, I went ahead and had them manufactured under the Object Series brand name, and I have just launched the retail site to sell them. As the name suggests, this notebook is the first in, I hope, a series of many notebooks to come.”

Here it is:

It looks very swanky with the elegant soft leather cover and the gilded edges. It’s a nice size, just a bit larger than a pocket Moleskine (shown below for comparison).

The design is very minimal and chic with the dark grey endpapers and no branding except for the small gold letters on the inside back cover. (There is a removable sheet tucked inside with more info about the brand.) There is a ribbon marker with an angled tip (which is nicely finished off so it won’t fray), but no elastic closure or back pocket.

When you first open the notebook, the gilded edges may stick together a bit– I rather like this, as it feels so crisp and new! The notebook doesn’t quite open flat– the signatures are sewn, but I think there’s a bit too much glue stiffening the spine.

The paper inside is creamy and smooth– very pleasant to write on. Unfortunately I found that there was a bit more show-through and bleed-through than average, including a little bleed with fountain pens. Fine point gel ink pens worked the best.

I have two issues with the notebook, the first of which is just my personal preference– I don’t care for the sharp squared corners of the cover and how far they stick out beyond the edges of the paper. I worry that the corners will get very battered with regular use. On the notebook I received, the cover was not attached to the book block squarely– you can see that the corners and edges are a bit off-kilter.

This happens a lot with various notebook brands, and I try to have reasonable expectations about the level of precision you can get in notebook manufacturing, but I think here it bothered me a bit more given the overall context of quality materials. Then again, the price for this notebook is only $16, including shipping to the US, so I suppose you can’t have everything!

My other issue was with how my sample arrived packaged– it was well-protected between 2 pieces of cardboard, but the notebook was secured in place with a piece of double-sided tape, right on the leather! It left a nasty, sticky residue which I haven’t been able to totally remove– I know there are products like Goo Gone that remove sticky residue, but they usually say not to use them on leather. I hope this is not how other customers will receive their notebooks– it made me so sad to have this nice, fancy-looking notebook marred by yucky glue! [Update 1/27/15: Justin responded to the glue issue after reading this review: “I have found box packaging specifically for books, so all notebooks now arrive safely.”]

Here’s all the official specs from the Object Series website: