Rhodia Rhodiarama - review

Stuart from PocketNotebooks kindly sent me a Rhodia Rhodiarama A6 Webbie to review. The notebooks have 192 pages of 90g ivory brushed vellum paper. The hard cover is leatherette in a series of bright colours. There is an expanding pocket inside the back cover, an orange ribbon bookmark, and an orange elastic closure. They are available on the Pocketnotebooks site for £7.50.

The one I was sent was turquoise and the contrast between the turquoise and the orange was very appealing. Where is it on the pretty/functional grid? The bright colours are attractive and the contrast with the ribbon/elastic is also good with the turquoise. That said, the orange doesn't go well with a lot of the other colours (the pink/orange combo is especially horrible!).

Front cover

Back cover

There is the Rhodia logo blind embossed in the middle of the cover (picture from Pocketnotebooks.co.uk as I forgot to take one and it's now rubbish lighting in Scotland!)

When you open the cover, there's a zebra!

Inside

The notebooks is 9.5 x 14.5cm, the paper is cream and paper size is 8.8 x 13.9cm with rounded corners. Line spacing is 6mm with a top margin of 6.5mm and 22 lines per page. Ruling stops about 4mm from the outer edge of the paper and 8mm from the inner edge.

The ruling is a bit narrow for me (as you'll see in the pen tests where my letters almost overlap) but then, I'm using stub nibs! One thing that did annoy me though was the shortness of the ribbon. It's only just longer than the page.

Woefully short ribbon!

In the back of the book is a pocket for slipping small items in, with more zebra patterning.

Back pocket

So, what's the paper like? Well, it's Rhodia so it's going to be better than many, but as Stuart has kindly pointed out in the past, I can be really picky!

General writing feel:
The paper is very smooth and fountain pens glide easily over it. Drying time is a little longer than many papers so if you're a left-hander who tends to smudge their writing, be aware of this. It's not too bad but if you write very quickly there's a possibility of smudges.

Feathering:
None. And there's some fabulous shading going on there too!

Show-through:
There is some ghosting to be honest. I wasn't expecting any but there's some.
4*/5

Bleed-through:
Again, I wasn't expecting any but there is some. Not so bad it would stop me using the page, but not none either. It's more noticeable with a light backing to the page than my desk (which is brown).
4*/5 

White background to the page

Dark background to the page

Flattability:
It's a hard back book so naturally won't lie as flat as soft-backed books with many fewer pages. The pages are sewn (I pulled one out to do the pen tests and have managed to pull the stitch undone, though the pages are still holding well). It can be persuaded to lie flat but won't lie flat on its own. It doesn't however need as much effort to hold it flat as the Write Notepad & Co. books I reviewed in the last post. 
3*/5

Overall:
This is a nice, robust little notebook. It isn't one for the back pocket (at least, don't sit on it and end up giving yourself sciatica!). The writing experience is good and there are lots of pages to the book. The ribbon marker could have done with being a bit longer - it feels stingy - and I'm personally not a fan of leatherette but otherwise, it's great.

My thanks to Stuart at Pocketnotebooks for sending it to me to review.

Disclaimer:
I was given this notebook free to review. However, this is an honest review and not influenced by it being a gift.