ProFolio Oasis notebooks landed on my radar at the first San Francisco Pen Show that I attended, where I had a chance to browse the Sailor/Itoya table. As a huge fan of multi-lined rulings such as Clairefontaine French/Seyes ruling and the Nakabayashi “Logical” lined rulings, I immediately jumped at the ProFolio layout, which distributor/manufacturer Itoya describes as a combination of “dots, graph, and lines.”
The ProFolio Oasis multi-lined layout.
Itoya highlights versatility as the main selling point of this notebook:
“The Profolio Oasis Notebook was designed to make the hard choice of “which journal” much easier. While many people have a hard time choosing between dot grid, graph, or lined, the Oasis Journal combines the best of all three with its new proprietary paper pattern. The combination of dots, grids, and lines as well as their light application makes this notebook ideal for handwriting, bullet journaling, and even drawing straight lines without the necessity of a ruler.”
I promise current and former co-workers who may be reading this that the meeting reflected in these notes is entirely fictional.
Personally, I use rulings such as this one to alternate the size of my script, which allows me to take different types of notes and make annotations all over the page. If I need to emphasize a certain note, I’ll use larger letters, and if I want to add annotations I’ll not only write smaller but will use the interior dotted lines instead of the wider, bold ruling. Each page of the notebook features a header section, so that you can date and label as necessary. Some of you may find the header section useful for summarizing meetings or key takeaways from a page of notes.
The paper is excellent. The current version of the ProFolio notebook features lightweight 75gsm Japanese paper that handles fountain pen ink quite well. If you enjoy the look of Clairefontaine French-ruled paper, yet find Clairefontaine too slick, the ProFolio paper has a softer texture more akin to Nakabayashi. (It might even be the same paper used in the Logical line, though that is pure speculation and there are slight differences in layout, particularly the header.) I picked an A5 version in “Brick Red” to test, and so far this paper has performed quite well with every fountain pen ink I’ve tried. Other available sizes include A6 and B5.
Takeaways and Where to Buy
The Itoya ProFolio Oasis series gets the T.G.S. stamp of approval. In addition to featuring quality paper with a versatile ruling/layout, ProFolio earns bonus points for multiple convenient sizes and a lie-flat binding. These Oasis notebooks are now available in our own shop and priced from $9.99 to $15.99, depending on size. As noted above, these come in A6, A5, and the coveted B5, which sits between A5 and A4. There are also five different colors. I didn’t realize the extent to which people appreciated this B5 size until I started carrying Nakabayashi and ProFolio, and I’ll try to find more in the future.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of notebooks marketed as “fountain pen friendly”, and not all of them live up to their billing. Given the current demand for good paper, I make it a point to test as many notebooks as I can because I know that eventually I’ll get questions on brands that are receiving a lot of attention on social media. If you’d like to read more on what I consider to be fountain pen friendly paper and specific brands you might want to try, I recently updated the “Hierarchies of Fountain Pen Friendly Paper” site resource.
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