Typo has some quirky bordering on junky stuff. But every once in a while they have some cute notebooks. Normally they’re just lined writing space but while trawling the clearance section I found 2 cute dot grid notebooks!

Let’s take a closer look!

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The Cover

The covers are different – the black one has a cover that feels sturdy but the material is actually soft.

It can mostly fold back on itself although the wire binding is small so it probably won’t get in the way anyway.

The black cover is 0.75″ thick, the gold is a bit less than 0.75″ thick.

These are dot grid notebooks that you could use for bullet journaling however they aren’t specifically designed for bullet journaling. I.e. there are no page numbers, index, key, future log etc. It’s just dot grid pages on the inside.

Let’s start with the black hardcover:

This one is a bit bigger than the gold version (pages are 6″ wide x 8.25″ high), the cover is a bit wider that those dimensions, to protect the pages and cover the coil.

One major con of the notebook is the dot placement – it awkwardly cuts dots in half on the side and doesn’t maintain the spacing at the top.

The dots are a bit smaller than 0.25″ spacing. They are 5mm apart (about 0.20″).

This notebooks was $15 but I got it on sale for $5. Typo always do mega sales when stuff is on clearance so I just wait until then and never pay full price for anything from there.

Gold Foldover Cover Notebook

The gold material isn’t super sturdy. Whoever was doing the discount price stickers that day stuck the price tag on the front cover. It’s not very noticeable in the photo below, but on the front cover is a black mark where I tried to get the price tag off but it took some of the cover material with it.

If only they’d put the sticker over the price tag on the back of the notebook… like common sense.

The cover is 5.75″ wide x 8.25″ high.  The inside pages are slightly smaller (about 5.1″ wide x 8″ high)

There’s only 1 ribbon bookmark so you may want to add some sticky notes.

The Typo logo is awkwardly printed on every right page wasting space. However the dot placement at the edges of the page isn’t an issue in the gold cover version – only the black cover version.

$17 retail price is steep! I paid $5 on clearance 🙂

Pen Testing

The paper quality isn’t very good – there was quite a lot of ghosting… for everything.

Pros of the Planner

• Cheap
• A5 page size
• Lay flat binding
• Sturdy covers

Cons of the Planner

• Paper is prone to ghosting
• Dot placement on the edges of the page is off
• No page numbers pre-printed
• The Typo logo is awkwardly printed on half of the pages wasting space
• No index page

Would I use this planner?

Yes – can never have too many dot grid notebooks! I’m not sure I’d pay full price for either of these notebooks though – the paper quality isn’t that great. For $5 though, it’s a nice change from all the boring black hardcover sewn bound bullet journals.

More Dot Grid Notebook Reviews:

• My Favorite Dot Grid Notebooks for Bullet Journaling
• Otto Dot Grid Bullet Journal Notebook
• Agendio custom dot grid notebook 

Planning Tips:

• Why I plan my day using planner stickers (and why you should too!) 
• 50 Tips for writing a better to do list that will make you more productive
• 50 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Planner

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