Custom Printed Journals.

A sewn spine opens flat and survives a year of daily use, where a glued spine cracks and sheds pages. The signatures are stitched through the fold with thread, then the block is glued to the cover, so the thread carries the strain every time the book is forced open on a desk.

We don't offer perfect binding on journals for this reason. Wire-o is the other lay-flat option if you want the cover to fold right back.

100gsm is the practical minimum, and 120gsm is what we suggest for anyone using a fountain pen. Copier-weight 80gsm bleeds with markers and wet nibs, which is why we don't stock it for journals at all.

The 120gsm sheet also cuts ghosting, the faint show-through of writing from the other side of the page, so both sides stay usable.

Hardcover board, softcover and bound cloth are the three cover types, and each takes foil, deboss and soft-touch differently. A hardcover in laminated or bonded material takes bag abrasion best. Cloth reads traditional and shows a debossed mark well.

Softcovers are lighter and cheaper but scuff faster at the corners, so we suggest them for shorter-life notebooks rather than a journal meant to last the year.

A debossed logo is the finish we'd point most brands toward, with a foil detail on the spine if you want something to catch the eye. Deboss is pressed into the board, so it doesn't wear off the way a printed mark does after months in a bag.

Soft-touch is the most requested surface on a daily-carry item because people notice it every time they pick the book up. Ribbon marker and elastic colours can be matched to the cover or set as a contrast.

A5 at 5.83 x 8.27 inches is the standard, with B5 at 6.93 x 9.84 inches for a larger desk book and a pocket format at 3.5 x 5.5 inches. Sizes are quoted on the trimmed page, so the cover overhangs slightly on a hardcover.

Page count is flexible, but sewn signatures come in multiples of 16, so a 192-page block is a typical build. Tell us how the journal will be used and we'll settle the size and count together.

Journals start at 500 copies. Sewing, casing-in and the cover finishing are all set up per job, and spreading that across fewer books pushes the unit cost up quickly.

Pricing tiers again beyond 1,000 copies. Within one order you can split ruled, dotted, grid and plain page styles, though each ruling is a separate print form and adds a little to the setup.

Allow 7 to 10 business days for a standard run, or 5 to 7 business days on the rush schedule. A sample journal takes 5 to 7 business days and lets you test your own pens on the paper before committing.

We credit the sample fee against the production order. Cloth covers and foil need a little more scheduling care, so mention them when you request the quote.

Ruled, dotted, grid and plain pages are all available, and dotted has become the default request over the past few years. Rulings are printed in a pale grey so they sit behind handwriting rather than competing with it.

Both the 100gsm and 120gsm sheets are uncoated wood-free papers, which recycle with ordinary office paper. A cloth or board cover can be pulled off and recycled separately.