Elemental Hydrogen Notebook Review

I love trying out new notebooks, so when I saw the Elemental Notebook Kickstarter I went ahead and backed it. I get exited by notebooks with a cool nerdy theme. They did a great job of sticking to their production dates and delivered the product rather swiftly, which I really appreciate. 

The notebook has a hardcover, covered with a light grey linen. I got the A5 dot grid version. The notebook has 192 pages of 100 gsm acid-free fine grain paper, with rounded corners. The dot grid is 5mm. The edges of the paper are black with the hydrogen emission spectrum. 

The Spine

The spine has a Hydrogen element square on the bottom. It is slightly off-center, and there's a dent in the spine just above the square (it arrived that way). There are two bookmarks, one grey and one black.

The binding is Smyth-sewn and the notebook has a three-piece cover. It lays completely flat, no matter what page you are on. I love that it lays flat consistently, a lot of notebooks can only lay flat in the middle part of the notebook.

Inside Cover

On the inside, you will find the Bohr model on one side, and a periodic table on the other side.

The paper does not handle fountain pens well. All of the writing feathered and bled, from the fine nib to the double broad. The double broad not only bled to the back of the page, but onto the next page as well.

Here's a close up of the feathering. The fine nib had the least feathering, which is to be expected since it is the smallest nib.

I tried to a few more fountain pens, which showed less bleeding, but the same feathering. There is some shading, but no sheen. The paper does feel toothy, it reminds me of the original Baron Fig paper. 

The paper did handle highlighters, gel pens, and pencils well. It is just toothy enough that it plays very well with graphite.

Overall, I love the concept-it's interesting, well-designed, and slightly nerdy. My only issue is the paper, I really was hoping it would handle fountain pens better. I'm hoping I just got a bad paper batch and not everyone's notebook is like this.

Disclaimer: I purchased this product myself, and all photos and opinions are my own. There are no affiliate links on this page.