Today, we are doing a Yop and Tom Journal review. Other than my mega review post, majority of my notebook reviews have been on YouTube. I’m now doing these as blog posts for easy reference, or if you don’t have time to watch a video. If you prefer to watch a video, you can check out my review here.
Yop and Tom is a small business based out of the UK. They have a variety of journals available, including dot grid, lined, and goal planners. Their lined notebook collection is very limited, as well as their goal planner options, but the dot grid has a small selection, compared to other companies I’ve looked at.
They have also started selling stencils to UK based customers and the stencils look fun.
If you haven’t seen any of my notebook reviews before, I talk about the basic information about the notebook, and then proceed with a pen test. I look at smudging, ghosting, and bleeding. I test about 16 different pens, as well as watercolour paint, and stamp inks, including dye ink, pigment ink, and solvent ink. This covers all the bases of the various journaling groups so I tend to stick to this process.
The Yop and Tom Dot Grid journal is the standard A5, 160 GSM, bright white paper. There is a name plate page, key, index, and pen test page. Page numbers are printed in the bottom right corner. You’ll find an envelope in the back of the book, as well as one ribbon bookmark. There are centre point grid marks which are similar to the Scribbles That Matter journals.
They say it has a lay flat binding, but I found that it didn’t lie flat easily. But a positive for me was the grid guide that was included. I thought that was a nice touch.
The journals are $24.99 USD. They ship from the UK so shipping is expensive. They are available on Amazon, but I found that the cost from the website after shipping, was the same cost listed on Amazon. There is also less variety on Amazon than on their website.
The dots are printed fairly dark which is great if you have trouble seeing the dots in other journals, but other than that, there wasn’t much else to set the journals apart. The cover is vegan leather but it’s a thinnish cardboard cover coated in the faux leather, and is very flexible which could be a problem if you travel with your notebook a lot. So I didn’t care for that very much. I prefer a thicker cover.
But, let’s take a look at the pen test!
The pages performed about the same as the other 160GSM notebooks I’ve tested. It handled Sharpie a little better but there was still bleed through. The dye stamp ink also had a very little bit of bleed through, and ghosting, but everything else performed well.
The pages definitely have a smoothness to them, and based on the smudge test, I think the pages are coated. Not as coated as Dingbats, but more so than the Archer and Olive journals. Fountain Pen, Gelly Roll, and paint pens will definitely need a bit more time to dry.
The ball point pen had some ridging which I haven’t seen in the other 160 GSMs, so if you like your pages to have a bit of that ridging, this could work for you.
There was nothing particularly ground breaking about this notebook. I do like the pages, not a fan of the cover. Grid guide is a nice touch, but otherwise, nothing we haven’t really seen before. Being that I’m in Canada, this is pretty expensive for me so this is a pass for me personally. Overall, I like some elements of the notebook, but I personally won’t be buying another one.
With that said, I have purchased the goal planner to see what that is like. As far as goal planners go, even with exchange and shipping, it still seemed comparable to other goal planners out there. So I thought I would take a look. But that will be another post, for another time.
For more journal reviews, you can check out my YouTube channel, or my comprehensive review on my blog. I will be adding to this as I go through more journals. I still have another large pile to get through, but I was curious bout this one.
If you have any question or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Talk soon!
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