Plain Lab · journal
Field Naturalist's Journal
Unruled pages for a naturalist who needs to draw what they saw, not just describe it.
Specification
- Trim
- 148 × 210 mm · 5.827 × 8.268 in
- Pages
- 100
- Leaves
- 50
- Sheets
- 25
- Signatures
- 5 × 20pp
- Spine
- 5.72 mm
- Paper
- white
- Ruling
- blank
- Ruling pitch
- 4.94 mm · 14.00 pt
- Rows per page
- 35
The ruling here is nothing: no lines, no grid, no column. What a naturalist records in the field is as often a sketch as a sentence, and a line running across a drawing only gets in the way of it.
The larger run of pages gives room for a specimen sketch, a measurement, and the date and place beside it, all on the same open page rather than split across a form. Notes pages behind them hold the longer write-up once you are back at a desk and the light is better than it was outside.
It will not identify anything for you. That is still the job of a guidebook, or someone who knows the ground better than the notebook does.
What is inside
- Compose
- 60pp
- Open, unruled pages for a sketch, a measurement, and a note on the same page.
- Notes
- 29pp
- For the write-up once you are back at a desk.
- Reference
- 11pp
- The owner page and reference tables at the back.
The film
Page by page
A vertical film from our own bench — this page contacts nobody's server to play it, and downloads nothing until you press play.
Real pages
Made at the Hibrkraft bindery, Bogor · about the maker
Books that sit alongside it
- Caregiver's JournalWorks alongsideshares personal-writing
- Commonplace InsertWorks alongsideshares personal-writing
- Dream JournalWorks alongsideshares personal-writing
- Evening InsertWorks alongsideshares personal-writing
- Field Notes InsertWorks alongsideshares field-work
Questions
Is it ruled?
No. The pages are blank, for sketching alongside notes.
Is it dated?
No. Start it whenever the fieldwork starts.
Will it help me identify a species?
No. It records what you saw. Identifying it is still a guidebook's job, not the notebook's.
What is the difference between the main pages and the notes pages?
The main pages are for the field, open and unruled. The notes pages are for the longer write-up once you are back at a desk.
Is it sturdy enough to carry outside?
It is sewn, not glued, which is the part of a notebook that actually fails first in a bag.
The fact is that the eye does not always give a true impression, but very often leads the mind to form a false judgment.
