Best Results Organizing

With traditional notebooks, even the ones with twists like we’ve examined in the last few posts (for lefties and customizers), we’re dealing with an expectation of some kind of permanence. But what about the times when we need notebooks to let us create, change, recreate, erase, and start all over again — without destroying the environment? Yes, I know that pretty much sounds like a computer, rather than a notebook (or at least an Etch-a-Sketch), but sometimes you need a new way to organize your visions and ideas as they change.

In just the past few months, we’ve seen an upsurge in a new kind of alternative notebook: a dry-erase notebook!

A dry-erase notebook is yet another hybrid solution with specific qualities to suit all possible needs. It must be:

• Erasable like a whiteboard.
• Permanent like a notebook — but only when you want it to be, because sometimes you need to fix mistakes or make revisions. (But it also can’t erase so easily, and unintentionally, that when you casually rub against it, your million dollar doodles become a blur.)
• Portable like a notebook, because whiteboards are great when they stay in one place, but unwieldy to take on the subway or even fit in a backpack.

I’ve found three options that seem to fit the bill, and all come from upstart companies with ingenuity and social backing rather than large corporations. Today, we’ll be looking at Wipebook 2.0, Writerase and Letterforms.

WIPEBOOK 2.0

One big name in dry-erase notebooks is Wipebook, or to be exact, their improved Wipebook 2.0. Canadian student/inventor Frank Bouchard and his team had a goal of $4000 to get the next iteration of his Kickstarter notebook some essential working capital. By campaign’s end in December, $424,314 was raised!

The various iterations of Wipebook 2.0 all come in one standard size, with 25 (double-sided, coated) sheets of 8 1/2″ x 11″ pages bound together with a plastic spiral coil, which allows the notebook to lay flat. The basic notebook with lined pages is $29.99. For notebooks with blank, grid (like graph paper), mixed or music sheets, the notebook is $34.99. You can also get a customized Wipebook for $75.

Playing it close to the vest with company secrets, as do its competitors, Wipebook will only say that it uses a “patent pending glossing process resulting in an enhanced writing and erasing experience.”

Although the Wipebook works well with all types of dry-erase pens, the preferred writing/drawing instrument (and what Wipebook sells) are fine-tip dry-erase Lumocolor Correctables (singles, black, for $2.89, and four-marker variety packs, with red, blue, green and black, for $11.99).

To get a sense of the Wipebook 2.0 in action, let’s hear from Bouchard and his team:

When we’re talking about keeping the contents of a dry-erase notebook long-term, there’s permanent and then there’s permanent. Eventually, when a project is complete and you’re ready to move on, it would be nice to have a permanent copy of the information or illustrations while being able to wipe the (notebook) slate clean.

A logical solution would be to scan the contents, but might the glossy nature of the paper (or the impermanence of dry-erase ink) make scanning a deal-breaker? Wipebook’s creators anticipated this question, and even created a little video to show how easily Wipebook 2.0 accommodates scanning.

Quick & easy-peasy? Well, yes, except for the part about having to remove the spiral binding (which looked simple enough, but we never did see the Wipebook 2.0 getting re-assembled)!

WRITERASE

Writerase is another dry-erase notebook that began life as a Kickstarter campaign — in fact, as this goes to press, the campaign has a little over 24 hours to go and has already raised over $29,000 towards a $6500 goal. It wasn’t as passionately funded as Wipebook, but it definitely surpassed the initial expectations of the four-man Canadian engineering team. (What’s with these Canadians and their desire to save the environment and provide options for both permanence and a clean slate?)

Each of the four Leaf-themed Writerase notebook in their collection (which they call a “forest”) has 54 pages, including 25 (double-sided) thin, resilient sheets of white paper with dry-erase coating plus two sheets of transparencies. (The transparencies are so that you can create a semi-permanent template page, like a calendar, and then modify and erase only the overlaying transparency.) The notebooks have a double-loop (Wire-O) metal binding, allowing the notebook lay flat when open.

The Writerase Leafs (I’d say “Leaves” but it seems rude to quibble with those nice Canadians) include the following formats:

Bonsai Leaf:     3“ x 5″ (index card size)

Oak Leaf:         5″ x 8″

Maple Leaf:      8″ x 11″

Banana Leaf:   11″ x 17″

There are three paper style choices: college-ruled notebook paper, 1/4″ gridded graph paper, and blank paper (suitable for writing or drawing).

The notebooks are designed to be used with the same dry-erase, non-permanent markers one uses with overhead projector transparencies. (Remember those from math class?) Each notebook comes with one pen eraser suitable for use with standard dry-erase pens, but you can also erase a page with a wet paper towel.

The Writerase team reports using a UV-gloss spray technique on high-quality paper for achieving a dry-erase notebook that is water resistant (meaning the paper won’t be damaged or dry “crinkly” — though of course the ink will still be water soluble) and can be cleanly erased without streaks. They promise an “incredibly smooth writing experience.”

The Writerase Kickstarter campaign will be over tomorrow, but you can still catch the video that got it started:

Writerase’s video page illustrates use with different dry-erase pens (as with Wipebook, Staedtler Lumocolor non-permanent markers are considered the best option), shares the paper quality and water-resistance tests that led to final product selections, shows how kids can use the notebooks, and more.

LETTTERFORMS

Although our neighbors to the north might seemed to have cornered the market on dry-erase notebooks, a Fremont, California-based company entered the fray with the successful Letterforms Kickstarter campaign that ended last month having raised $107,777 towards an $8000 goal. (Do you get the sense that even if Big Paper isn’t immediately seeing the need for dry-erase notebooks, the consumers of North America aren’t going to wait?)

Web developer-turned-designer Venkat Yuvaraj originally focused on creating a washable notebook, but with backer feedback from his first Kickstarter campaign, he came around to a dry-erase format.

Each Letterforms Dry Erase kit comes with one 8″ x 10″ dry-erase notebook bound with plastic-covered coil-style spiral binding and two fine-tip Staedtler Lumocolor correctable markers (one red, one black, with erasers on the non-functional ends). Every notebook contains twenty (double-sided, coated) sheets. While only standard blank and dot-gridded notebooks at this “classic” size were part of the original run, Letterforms created “stretch bonus rewards” for the campaign, including an 8″ x 5″ mini-notebook and a 6″ x 4″ passport-sized notebook, both of which could be added to the product line after the funded campaign is fully shipped this month.

Yuvaraj notes that while the Staedtler markers are included, the notebooks support all dry-erase markers as well as wet-erase, washable and permanent stains, removable with a wet cloth, and promises no ghosting, even after many months of use.

Pricing for the post-Kickstarter period is not described on the website, but the initial pricing for a basic kit was set at $25.

Letterforms’ Kickstarter page includes a number of videos testing how the notebook holds up under a variety of treatments with different pens, smudge attempts, masking tape attacks and more. Indeed, if you’re interested in seeing how inventors get to the point that they can share their products with the public, Yuvaraj is an open book (no pun intended). See the Kickstarter campaign video:

For scientists and mathematicians, musicians and composers, poets and cartoonists, a dry-erase notebook offers a novel way to organize deep thoughts and creations through successive versions. Brainstorming, studying, calculating and engineering, technical drawing, room design, graphic design, and a wicked game of Hangman or Tick-Tack-Toe — all are suitable for dry-erase notebooks.

Do it, doctor it, destroy it, and start all over again without undue deforestation and with ultimate portability.

Dry-erase notebooks are a nifty concept, but as Paper Doll HQ didn’t get to try any of these products first-hand, it may be a while before we have a final verdict. It seems that Writerase has the greatest variety in terms of notebook sizes, while Wipebook 2.0 allows for more customization (albeit at higher prices). Letterforms has slightly fewer pages, but includes two pens in the package cost. All are fairly secretive (and understandably so) about their secret formulas for making slippery, slide-y, write-on-able, wipe-off-able page surfaces. And I’d like each company to provide options for adding section dividers to better organize notebook contents without having to add third-party tape flags or tabs. (Perhaps these companies need to get together with the makers of the customizable notebooks we’ve discussed recently.)

What do you think? Would you use a dry-erase notebook? Please share your thoughts in the comments.