Here we have another Kickstarter project that I decided to support at a modest level. When I saw the design of the LatLon notebooks, I thought it was quite cool-looking, and an interesting concept. Each notebook has a letterpress printed cover featuring the contour lines of the elevation of an island or glacier or the surface of Mars. They include the coordinates of the location, therefore the LATitude and LONgitude of the brand name. It’s a simple idea, but very nicely executed, with the contour lines and slight color contrast of the printing making a beautiful design and a pleasing texture.

Apart from the design, these are pretty standard in terms of format– 3.5 x 5.5″, staple-bound, very similar to Field Notes, Moleskine Cahier and various others, including the Furrow Books notebook I reviewed just recently. Blank or squared pages are available– I got the grid pages, where the lines are thicker than Moleskine’s– you can see the dot printing in the lines, making them seem less sharp.

The paper is very smooth and feels great to write on– a similar feel to Moleskine paper. Performance is good with fine gel ink pens, but otherwise show-through is average to a bit worse than average with some pens. Bleed-through is a bit worse than average with fountain pens.

I am happy I have these notebooks in my collection, but I don’t think I’ll be buying more. The design is gorgeous, but otherwise they are very basic and don’t offer anything extra beyond the competition, yet they are priced quite a bit higher– individual notebooks are $7, or you can get 3 for $15 or 6 for $30. (And I think even this is a sale price marked down from the original cost.) That does not include shipping from Iceland. As far as I know, LatLon’s online store is the only place to buy them.