Design: Lined pages
Our considered edit of stationery classics is all about the details. Designing our lined page layout was no exception.
So when we came to create our first lined notebook, we took our usual approach: to survey lots of examples of lined pages, and speak to our community, to work out what the Mark+Fold version should be.
Our first Lined Notebook, 2016
The design was based on many years' of using lined notebooks of different varieties, and some personal preferences and pet-hates developed along the way.
The design we created was as follows:
— clear, generous margins, to give the page some breathing space and elegance; and because you can't write right upto the edge, so this avoid leaving some lined areas 'unfilled'
— similarly, at the bottom of the page, there is often a line so close to the bottom of the page that there is no space to rest your hand comfortably to write, so you tend to skip that line (again, it feels irritating to leave a line 'unfilled')
— the lines are spaced so that you can write on every line (narrower lines can make your writing neater, but when you're in a hurry, you tend to write larger and messier, so you start skipping every other line for comfort); this way you end up writing more lines per page
— however, the lines are not space so widely as to remind you of the 'refill' pads you used at school, which feel a bit inelegant
2020 Revisions
Four years on, we sold out of our last batch of lined notebooks and felt it was a good moment to go back to the drawing board. As we reach our fifth anniversary, we wanted to bring together the best bits of all the notebooks we've created so far.
We spoke to a group of customers about the finer details and decided to make some tweaks:
— we have made the lines slightly lighter; they are printed in a lighter shade of warm grey, which compliments the cream pages and is less imposing than the darker lines on the Mark Two. Ideally your pen should be the most prominent mark on the page, with the lines providing an underlying structure without dominating the page.
— we have retained the margins, but made them slightly narrower at the sides, to allow a fraction more writing space per page; whilst many people prefer lines to 'bleed off' the page, we feel this gives the page an elegant feel overall and delineates the areas you are unlikely to write on as they are so close to the edge
— we decided to keep the line spacing the same; we will never get everyone to agree 100% on this, as everyone has different hand-writing, but the most compelling comment we received was "there is no other brand making a classy, high quality notebook with wider lines." In other words, other options tend to be good quality thin-lined, or poorer quality wide-lined. We like the idea of putting usability first and making the notebook as beautiful as elegant as it can be, but at no cost to its functionality