Over the next few weeks I intend to tackle the mess in my so-called study. Since finishing the Legal practice course, everything from the past year has been dumped in piles around the room and it is beginning to look a bit like a graveyard for law textbooks, notebooks and folders.

Today it was time to tackle the notebooks. The notebook collection here is very different from my eye-candy ones of my childhood when my collection was all about the look, now my notebooks also have a more academic appeal. My intentions are to weed out the practical from the beautiful and try and come up with a more organised way for displaying such notebooks rather than have them stacked in my wardrobe.

The collection of notebooks used in the last academic year:

The left hand side is a pile of my spiral notebooks – which are practical, cheap and easy to cart around but somewhat lack that spark that made me love notebooks in the first place. I will single out my favourite spiral notebook which I used for accounts here (such a waste for my last classic rhino notebook –  I have been guilty of buying these in bulk during undergrad).

But just because notebooks are pretty, doesn’t mean they don’t have a practical side to them. One of my recent favourites has been the Alife B6 Planner.

The Alife planner is notebook, with a PVC enamel covering (available in a range of colours). What is so great about this notebook is that it is made to be functional – with a variety of pages, labelled on the front as: Free Writing 176 pages, Free Drawing 196 Pages, Memo 16 pages, Information archive 16 pages. It also has plastic pockets in the over to place loose bits of paper (and in my case souvenir beer mats).The notebook is incredibly durable and survived a month backpacking round Europe. I purchased this particular notebook in Paperchase. Alife Designs also have produced a wide range of similar style notebooks with a variety of specialised purposes which I totally love. However, the only website I’ve been able to find them to buy on is paperpuppy.net (int shipping to the UK is priced at $24).

The other notebook I’ve chosen to highlight is the Pantone Universe.

Another brightly coloured notebook. I’ve again chosen blue – who knew I liked blue that much? Pantone is all about colour. And the brightly coloured note books show off that colour. Both on the cover and on the inside with red narrowly lined paper rather the usual dull colour. Good quality paper easy to write on. I used this notebook for blogging ideas while I commuted to university. Smooth for writing on, even on the move. I bought my notebook at John Lewis, but it is also available from Ryman’s.

For more on the notebooks I have used during my LPC year (for academic purposes and otherwise) please check out my separate post on designing your own textbook.