Canvas Classic Backpack, by Baron Fig

I have tried for three years to like the Command TSA-Friendly Messenger Bag from Timbuk2, which I (used to) use most days for work. It has a lot going for it, but the metallic hook and loop closing system just bugs me. Plus, it’s kind of bulky, and I’d rather have a backpack.

Within one day of using Baron Fig’s new Canvas Classic Backpack, I’d found a new bag, and haven’t changed since.

Baron Fig really nailed its goal of “minimal design focus[ing] on the basic essentials.” It’s got:

a padded pocket for a laptop and/or iPad (I easily fit both at once)
a big main pouch
two side pockets for water bottles, granola bars, apples, coffee mugs, etc. (and they’re not too small to actually hold a good-sized travel mug!)
a couple little pouches inside for notebooks, etc.
two external pockets, for easy access to pens, wallet, phone, etc.

Check it out:

1_Outside View

2_Inside View

Front View

The zippers are high quality and easy to grab without looking.

Zippers

Bonus: the branding on the back is minimal and not obtrusive.

x_Branding

I didn’t realize this until recently re-watching Season 1 of Stranger Things, but the backpack could be straight out of 1984 Hawkins, Indiana! Compare.

I was concerned at first that lack of padding on the shoulder straps would either make it uncomfortable or not able to handle heavy loads. No concerns here after a fair amount of use. (Although I still might like to see padded straps on future iterations… I’m guessing those were skipped this time to keep things simple and lower cost.)

4a_Straps

4b_Strap Closeup

The straps are easy to adjust for a good fit. And this is one of my biggest water bottles, fitting just fine in the side pocket:

Water Bottle

Quality-wise, everything looks great, except I just the other day (after using this for two weeks) noticed a fabric flaw. I’m not sure if this is wear (pilling?) or if it was like this when it came.

5_Fabric Flaw

What’s in my backpack right now?

an iPad
a laptop would be, but I’m writing on it at the moment
a laptop charger
earbuds
this book (review forthcoming)
this thought-provoking book (review forthcoming)
this running training journal (review forthcoming)
this notebook cover and notebooks
some Baron Fig pens and pen sheaths
a Blackwing pencil
pencil sharpener
notecards
cough drops
a running magazine

And, somehow, it all fits really well without compromising the light and slim profile of the backpack.

I love it, especially in the blue slate color. Baron Fig has really knocked it out of the park with this backpack.

The backpack is $68. You can find it here.

AND… if you shop at Baron Fig (for anything!) through this affiliate link, you get $10 off a purchase of $20 or more, which would apply to this backpack.

Thanks to Baron Fig for sending the backpack so I could review it! This did not influence the objectivity of this review. This review will also be cross-posted at Words on the Goods.

The Near-Perfect Driftwood Leather Field Notes Cover (Popov Leather)

Now that your Field Notes: Sweet Tooth Edition have arrived (and they do not disappoint!), what are you going to put them in? Your pocket, of course. But unless you’re wearing chaps, you can’t put your notebook into your pocket and into leather at the same time.

Well, actually you can. And there’s hardly a better way to do it than with Popov Leather’s perfectly constructed and reasonably priced Leather Field Notes Cover. Popov has a wide array of leather covers (here). In this post I review the Driftwood leather cover with pockets ($49). You can protect your pocket notebooks, make them smell good, have pockets in your pockets, and avoid chaps–all with one piece of gear.

The packaging, if I may quote Kendrick Lamar, is A1:

0_In Wrapping

It looks great out of the wrapper–there’s even a personalization option:

1_Front Cover

The only lack I could perceive in this top-notch piece of EDC gear is a place to easily keep a pen. (And maybe, too, a way to keep the notebook shut, but it stays flat and closed on its own just fine.)

I made a slight modification to mine so I could have a pen with it at all times:

2_Fron Cover w Pen and Band

Inside on the left are two card slots for credit cards, cash, business cards, driver’s license, and so on:

3_Left Inside Pocket

When you order, you can select the color of thread–the blue pops, but not too much. It looks great.

And if you haven’t gathered already from the images above, the stitching is flawless (and done by hand):

It was from the Popov Leather site, in fact, that I learned the mechanics of why hand-stitching lasts longer than machine-stitching.

You can easily fit two 3.5″ x 5.5″ notebooks:

4_Two Notebooks

Already the leather is softening and getting a distinctive look. What kind of leather, you ask? Horween’s Chromexcel, of course. And have I mentioned how detailed the Popov Leather site is? Lots of makers are using Horween, but why? Popov tells you.

I’ve got two use cases for this notebook cover that have worked really well.

Setup the First: Into the left slot goes the notebook I use for weekly meal menus and handwritten recipes or food prep notes. The right slot holds the notebook I use for shopping lists. (I know… that’s getting a little specialized on the Field Notes.) But then I can keep grocery store receipts in the card pockets and have everything in one place, which helps not just with long-range menu planning, but also budget tracking.

Setup the Second: Daily note-taking with more catch-all pocket notebooks. Card pockets for little notes and other scraps of paper.

So this one is a winner. A Popov Tweet suggests a pen loop may be in the works for future editions, but Field Notes covers with loops are the rarer breed anyway. Bonus: you get a free Field Notes notebook inserted into the cover.

The look, feel, smell, and craftsmanship of the Driftwood Leather Field Notes Cover are about as good as it gets. Check it out here.

Thanks to Popov Leather for sending the Driftwood cover for the purposes of the review. Their kindness in sending the sample did not keep me from an honest and objective assessment in my review. I also cross-posted this review at the new Words on the Goods.

The Word from Words on the Word on Word. Pocket Notebooks

Here, in one page, is my assessment of the Dot Grid pocket notebooks from Word. Notebooks:

Here are a few more notes I took before summarizing, if you want some more details:

Here are the hyperlinks:

Word. Notebooks // Word. Dot Grid

And now… images follow–click or tap to enlarge. (All the images above are of text written in Word. notebooks themselves.)

Thanks to the friendly folks at Word. Notebooks for the review samples, given to me with no expectation as to the content of my review.

This Blog’s First Handwritten Review (Inkleaf Field Notes Covers)

I wasn’t kidding about trying to write by hand more in 2016. To that end, I bring you my first handwritten review. Below I evaluate another Field Notes leather cover, this one the Slim Cover from Inkleaf.

And because my handwriting doesn’t hyperlink, after the images of my written review, I add the hyperlinks… and lots of pictures.

Hyperlinks:

Inkleaf’s Story // The Field Notes Slim Cover // Inkleaf’s home page

Images Follow–click or tap to enlarge:

If You Want to Cover Your Field Notes in Leather… (ColsenKeane)

In my quest to write by hand more regularly, I’ve learned two things:

There are LOTS of companies that make 3.5″x5.5″ pocket notebooks, not least of which is Field Notes.
Not content to let those little notebooks exist unadorned, a number of folks have created leather covers.

One such company is ColsenKeane, a creator of custom leather goods. Their founder, Scott Hofert, believes in manufacturing high-quality goods that will last for a long time:

In our modern society, it’s next to impossible to find long-haul products. Passion-infused items crafted with fanatical detail. At ColsenKeane, we believe our leather pieces are creating form, function AND narrative.

I’m grateful to ColsenKeane for sending me a Field Notes Cover so I can bring you this review. The color is “Brown Crazy Horse.”

* * * * * * *

You can tell these folks take delight in their work, a trait I appreciate. Here is what the packaging looked like:

It was so well presented, I almost didn’t want to open it, but I ripped into it quickly enough.

It came with two Field Notes inserts. This is one of the salient features of this leather cover–it’s specifically intended for two notebooks.

Just because you can insert two notebooks doesn’t mean you have to. This is one of those how full do you like your wallet? questions. Avid notebook users will probably have more than one memo book, each for a different purpose. So I like the decision to set up the cover to be able to accommodate two notebooks.

There is an option for three-letter monogramming:

The elastic place marker is not something I would have known I’d appreciate, but I do:

Everything is held together by elastic. The leather, of course, will last for ages–the elastic may not. So far I’ve had no issues with mine, but ColsenKeane does sell replacement elastic (or you can get your own), if need be. Elastic and leather feel like a funny combination, but ColsenKeane has done a nice job of putting everything together.

Let me show you in pictures–you basically just slide the open notebook into one of the elastic pieces, and it fits pretty securely.

The elastic closure to keep the notebook closed is probably not utterly essential, but it has a good job to do, especially if you’re putting the notebook cover in your pocket.

The leather cover works great for other non-Field Notes notebooks, too, especially if they’re 3.5″x5.5″:

The little Baron Fig Apprentice notebooks are 5 inches (not 5.5) high, so they’re a little looser, but they actually work pretty well in this cover, too:

Or you could mix and match:

There is no pen holder, per se, but it’s easy enough to clip a pen to the cover.

ColsenKeane’s Field Notes cover is really well constructed. Two thumbs up for that. Of course, you don’t need a leather cover for your pocket notebooks. Pocket notebooks do just fine in your pocket without leather covering them.

But the Field Notes cover looks really cool and smells and feels good, so I’ll keep using it, as long into 2016 (and beyond?) as my analogue kick continues. It is an awesome piece of workmanship, and enhances the writing experience, giving me another Pavlovian motivation to be on paper more and at the screen less.

More info about the leather cover is here.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Colsen Keane for the notebook cover for review! Learn more about the company here.

Review of WaterField’s Spike Wallet

I’m increasingly finding myself drawn to the high-quality goods of manufacturers in New York (here and here) and San Francisco.

WaterField Designs is based in SF. They make an excellent keyboard slip case, which I covered here. For the last few weeks I’ve been carrying around their super-slim and stylish Spike Wallet.

It looks like this:

The best thing about it is its size–it’s small! It’s about the size of an iPhone 5, so it actually fits really comfortably into a front pocket, right next to a phone. Actual dimensions: 4.3″ x 3″.

This can’t be your hold-everything wallet, of course. I’ve been able to easily fit into it: two debit cards, some cash, an insurance card, and my driver’s license. This is what I need most days. However, the kids’ insurance cards or any gift cards I have still have to go in another, larger wallet. (Or just in my satchel somewhere.)

Getting things in an out was a bit tough at first, but the full-grain leather continues to soften with use. Here’s what it looks like filled:

The closure mechanism is minimalist and slides right into place, easily and snugly. It’s perfectly executed.

There’s only a little bit of branding, and it’s on the back. I probably would have preferred something more subtle, like on the inside flap of the wallet, for example.

The leather feels great in the hands, the stitching is secure, and the size is right for daily use. This piece of gear has been truly enjoyable to use.

WaterField makes a lot of other great-looking gear, which you can learn more about here. Find the Spike Wallet here. Retailing at $25, it comes in “Wallet”/large size (which I’ve featured here) as well as “Business Card”/small size.

Thanks very much to WaterField for the product review sample, given to me for purposes of review, but with no expectations or influence on the review’s content.

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