I’d like to think DaVinci would have agreed. If however, you also find that squared pages are a bit imposing, dotted pages may be exactly what you’re looking for. So if you find that a blank sheet of paper is just not enough structure, you are in very good company. The famous Grid Method is still used by artists today. Once the basic proportions were sketched accurately with the help of the grid, the lines were either erased or painted over. His grid needed to be flexible, since it included not just horizontal and vertical lines, but diagonal lines at varying degrees.ĭürer depicted the popular method of superimposing a simple grid on both subject and canvas. The dot grid can actually prove quite handy.ĭaVinci, being the closet engineer he was, used a simple 2d grid to divide the human face into standard proportions. I’ve sort of always been a doodler, which developed pretty naturally into sketching, and eventually into an interest in multi-toned pencil portraiture. Leuchtturm's dot grid style is on-point.Ī key piece of information here is that I still prefer pen and paper over an app for gathering my thoughts and ideas. I found Rhodia's dot style to be a bit fuzzy, while Moleskine's were too dark and bold to blend into the background. Sharp and clear, but also small and light, their dot grid seems just right to me. You may notice the weight difference, you may not, but you'll more likely find a bit less ink bleed-through and pen impression on the page reverse.įinally, the style of the dots themselves seems more well-thought-out in a Leuchtturm1917. At 80 gsm, Leuchtturm1917's paper weighs in at 14% heavier than Moleskine's, which is 70 gsm. The paper weight always felt a bit more substantial to me, and after some digging, found I wasn't crazy. Leuchtturm1917s also feature numbered pages, and two bound-in ribbon bookmarks. I was already a fan of their hardcover, being a half-inch wider than a Moleskine that additional inch (when open) does make a difference to me. I was not new to Leuchtturm1917 notebooks though. I think it was its lay-flat-when-open construction combined with its thinner profile that won me over. My exclusive use of dotted pages corresponded with my discovery of Leuchtturm1917's softcover notebook.
All Nuuna journals are thread-stitched and bound in fine, but durable materials.
Here is the skinny on how I use dotted pages, why I prefer them, and how the major brands compare.
As a graphic designer and team leader here at Jenni Bick, I've been using dotted page notebooks for a couple of years now, exclusively for the past year.