Hello! My name is Kiki, and I’m a first-year interested in majoring in English or some creative/humanities related. I’m taking this class because I really love design and creativity, and I think a hands-on class where you can build and design products is really cool. Also I want to fulfill one of my math distribution requirements with this so I don’t have to take a calculus class. In my free time I love playing tennis.
The product that I chose was my small “reporter’s” notebook. I went through three of these last year, because I use them to take notes on a daily basis. I chose this product because it was close to me when I was looking around for something to choose, and I think its design does give it interesting qualities. I like these notebooks because the spiral is on top as opposed to on the side in conventional notebooks, and I don’t like having my hand jammed against the spiral when I write. Also, its small size makes it convenient to carry around. However, its size can also be inconvenient if I have to take a lot of extensive notes, and it can be harder to find what I need. Also, this particular notebook has very smooth paper and I would like to explore what makes it so nice.
The notebook is made of roughly 54 parts, with 50 sheets of paper, a metal spiral, two plastic covers and an inner paper cover. I think I could consider this product sustainable, because it is mostly paper which can be recycled, and the metal could be reused. That being said, because the paper feels like it’s been treated to be nicer, maybe it is harder to recycle. I’m not sure how much it costs, because it was a gift, but the ones I had before were around a dollar each. This one, because it’s nicer, was probably more expensive, maybe from $5-10.
It’s great to have you in class, Kiki! I don’t have much experience with paper making but I expect Prof. Ruffin in the Book Arts lab could help you understand why your paper is so nice 🙂
I agree that the top-spiral is preferable for the reasons you state … and unfortunately harder to find, which I wonder about.