55°

On a Japanese rarity:

There are lines, and there are squares in several sizes; there is the Seyès ruling at French schools, the Cornell note-taking scheme in notebooks, the genkõ yõshi ruling for writing in Japanese, and even ruling for left handed people (no affiliation)… And now, the ruling for those who write at an angle. That is, at least what the cover of this notebook says.

The cover of the Tsubame notebook. It is made by Life Stationery Company.

The unusual ruling of this particular notebook. The angle is 55°.

This is a Tsubame notebook, a product of Life Stationery Co., in size B5 (179x250 mm²). The paper, as is customary in Tsubame notebooks, is very well pressed and shows no problems of feathering or bleeding: it is perfectly suited for fountain pens. The paper density, secondary to the paper pressing quality, is 83.5 g/m². The price is JPY 310 (52 pages).

The paper is very good. No feathering...

... and no bleeding. Not even with very wet nibs.

But the distinctive element of this notebook in particular is its ruling. Guiding lines are rotated 55° over the horizontal. The utility? As the cover says, for those who write with crooked lines. This angle, that many consider excessive, is nothing fancy nor was ever carefully considered. It is simply the angle of the diagonal of a B or A type of paper over the horizontal (arctg √2 = 54.7°).

The looks of a written page are... unusual as well.

However, would it not be easier and cheaper to rotate a regular notebook? A regular ruled notebook of this size by Tsubame costs JPY 170 (plus tax).

Ban-ei in black urushi – Pilot Blue

Bruno Taut
Nakano, April 17th, 2016
etiquetas: papelería, Life Stationery