my current note-taking setup
I've seen a few posts on Bear Blog where people list / show the tools they are currently using, and I always find them interesting to read. So in this post, I want to showcase my current setup for quick notes when I'm "on the go". I own a lot of stationery, which I've haphazardly amassed over the years. Recently, I'm trying to organise things a bit better and put together "kits" that are both functional and have a visual through-line (colour palette, design, etc).
The setup
In the middle here is my "quick notes"-notebook - a Kokuyo Se-Y3 "Survey / Field Notebook."1 It's cheap, it's slim, and it has a hard cover, which makes it relatively easy to use while standing or sitting (when there's no desk or proper writing surface around). The 3mm grid is pretty small, but I like to keep my handwriting tiny, so it doesn't bother me. And when I don't feel like it, I can always double the height and do 6mm lines.
The "book band" is a DIY creation; a combination of a 100 yen store elastic hair tie and a button from a flea market. I also got a clear cover for the notebook, although I prefer the texture / feel-in-hand of the notebook without it. I might leave it off for future notebooks, but it has its uses (more on that later).
On the left hand is my small pencil case, made from cloth and containing only the bare necessities. I got it around five years ago in the Omotesando area. I haven't been able to find the shop that sells them online, and the store that I got it at has since closed / disappeared ... a bummer, really. I was thinking about getting another one. I like this pencil case a lot. It fits anywhere, is easy to open and close and also very lightweight.
On the right side is my "regular" pencil case, from a brand called Bel Posto. It's synthetic mesh with some PU leather bits. I don't love the materials here, but everything else is good (weight, volume, colour scheme...). I use this one when I want to do some more elaborate note-taking or drawing / sketching, usually at a cafe or other places where you can properly sit and write.
The pens - small pen case
From left to right:
1) Pentel Sign Pen (Fude Touch) A cross between a marker and a fude pen for bold headings. I don't use it very often, but it's nice to have when I want to give my notes some more structure. The tip has some brush pen qualities that allows for basic calligraphy.
2) Pentel P205 (0.5mm) Mechanical pencil taking standard 0.5mm leads. This is the most recent addition to the lineup, a "limited edition" colourway. I like how it fits the colour scheme and matches the design of the ballpoint. The clip's design is really good for attaching the pencil to books that I'm reading on my commute. It goes up a bit and then comes down in a small arc, leaving enough room for multiple pages or thicker paperback covers.
3) Sakura Retrico Ball (0.4mm) A simple ballpoint pen. I like its needlepoint tip (allowing for small handwriting) and its slight "retro" design. When writing, the tip feels very firm, with little drag, while not being too floaty. The sound of the pen's click is also pretty satisfying. The ridged plastic grip section follows my preferences for pens without rubber grips (I've done a rant post on this topic before).
4) uni PROPUS Window (Bright Yellow) A text marker. This is the only "non-green" pen in this set, because yellow is the accent color of the colour pattern that I'm (roughly) following right now.2 I wish the design was a bit less gaudy (the rainbow-gradient "PROPUS" looks really garish), but I like the colour - bright and eye-catching without being too bitingly neon.
The pens - regular pen case
There's quite a bit to cover here, so I'll just do it quickly in one paragraph. From left to right: A Pilot Kire-Na text marker in Pale Green (feels fresh and soothing), two Sakura Pigma Micron Markers (005 and 02) for drawing / outlines, a Sakura Retrico mechanical pencil (0.5) for regular pencil sketches and a Pilot S3 Series mechanical pencil (0.3) for sketching out finer details. Next to it is a uni style fit multi-pen holding three refills: Brown-black (0.28mm), dark green (0.28mm) and yellow (0.5mm). The brown is for regular writing, the green for small side notes and markings, and the yellow for underlining / highlighting and bigger markings. I mostly use this one when I feel like making my notes look a bit more colourful. Next is a Pilot Juice gel pen (0.5) in Gold. I like using the gold for small accents in my notes. The other two pens are a Pilot BP-P (a super cheap ballpoint for scribbling notes on crappy paper) and a single-color uni style fit in Lime Green (for some more colour variety).
Aside from the pens, this case also contains a Tombow MONO eraser and a simple pencil sharpener from Muji. I just noticed that the sharpener doesn't have any function currently, since there are no regular pencils in the case. I might have to change that.
The inside of the notebook
Above is a spread illustrating how I use the notebook. I chose this one because of its variety, most pages look a lot more "boring" (just writing on both sides). On the left page, I sketched out some graphic design elements that I'm thinking about adding to the blog. The rest is reading notes (for a book and a Bear Blog entry on another blog).
Although I don't love the feel of the clear plastic cover, it comes with the upside of adding two "pockets" to the notebook (one in the front, one in the back). I use them to temporarlily store small things like stickers or cards, and also pieces of scrap paper where I write things that I don't want to put into the notebook (yet), like spontaneous post ideas or rough thumbnail sketches. If I leave off the cover for the next notebook, I might have to find some other solution, like making my own pockets out of paper. On the right side here is an old ink drawing from a few years ago (a copy of something I found on Pinterest, I think) that I re-purposed into a sticker to give the notebook some personality.
Conclusion
And that's it! Overall, I'm very happy with this current setup. I was trying out a lot of different notebooks before, but I think I might just use the Kokuyo ones for a while. They're great pocket notebooks, and they fit the green-based colour scheme that I'm going for.3 One major thing that's missing from the pen lineup are fountain pens - I was really into fountain pens until last year or so but have since cooled off on them a bit. I do have some pocket fountain pens I could put in these pen cases, but I've found fountain pen ink to be a bit too finicky for regular, bog-standard paper.4 I've been taking a lot more notes since putting together this setup, and I plan to fill a lot more notebooks in the future!
Not entirely sure why it says "Sketch Book" on the front. I guess you can use it as one, but it's not a "true" artist's sketchbook because the pages are gridded. But I can make sense of it by thinking of my "quick notes" as sketches of thoughts or ideas that I might elaborate on at a later point in time.↩
You can also check out my post on personal styles and colour palettes.↩
They've also been around for long enough that many locations across Japan offer exclusive versions with little pictures in "gold leaf" on the bottom half of the cover. I already got two of those from the Tokyo National Museum.↩
It's usually fine for the first half of a page, but then I get to the second half and the ink starts to "feather" or spread slightly because of the traces of skin oil that I leave with the ball of my hand as I write. This can be prevented by placing a piece of paper under the hand or using one of those half-gloves for digital artists - but I'm not doing that when I'm out and about. So fountain pens are in their own category altogether and I mostly use them at home now (for journaling etc).↩