Some of us are rocking the 2015 Hobonichi Techo, and it’s different enough from other items on the market that I thought I would create a thread as a place to discuss anything related to this particular notebook.
While “Techo” means “planner,” and it can be used as such, it has many other uses: personal log/diary, sketchbook, commonplace book, and so on. In the 14 years it’s been around, it’s attained great popularity in Japan, where people use it to record any and all of the things that matter to them.
The Techo is not inexpensive (with shipping from Japan to the Midwest, I paid something like $36 for mine), which is more than what most people want to pay just to flip through it and maybe give it a go. I bought the Techo in order to entice myself to write more, especially because I’d become bored with the larger books I normally use.
Below, I’ve compiled some features and my initial perceptions of the Hobonichi Techo. This isn’t exhaustive by any means, and there are probably many people on the internet who have done a much better job of describing the form and function. Hopefully some of you will find this useful, though.
#1 Overview and specifications
Size and Paper
The Techo comes in an English-language A6 size and two sizes in Japanese (A6 and the larger A5 “Cousin”). There are multiple covers you can get for it, but I think it looks pretty handsome on its own. The English language version is black leather-like card stock with “Te Cho” stamped in gold on the front, along with the logo of the design group ARTS&SCIENCE, who collaborated on the English version. The book has a lie-flat binding and the most subtly rounded edges.
The Techo is printed on Tomoe River paper in black ink, except for Sundays, which are printed in orange. The paper is simultaneously tissue thin and very strong, a seemingly impossible quality with which anyone familiar with Tomoe River paper would be familiar. The paper can take fairly thick/wet ink without bleeding or feathering. I use Zebra 0.4 gel ink with good results.
The bulk of the Techo is printed with a 3/16” x 3/16” grid (see below for more details on layout). This is quite small. My handwriting takes up one half of each square’s vertical space, so the size works for me, but it may be annoyingly small for others. Of course, no one said you have to fit your writing in the little squares.
Layout
The Techo’s first few pages are dedicated to calendars of various sorts. First, there’s a full year at-a-glance calendar for both 2015 and 2016. Next, each month is presented in index format with one line per day, running from December, 2014 to March, 2016. Next comes a 2-page spread calendar (2 facing pages per month), also running from December 2014 to March 2016. This calendar has enough space to jot down appointments or to-do items, record birthdays and holidays—stuff like that. The Techo provides spaces for the last four days of December, 2014, before launching into the day-by-day sections.
Each monthly section is prefaced by a “Coming Up!” lined page, where you can write down upcoming events, things you’re looking forward to, or whatever else you decide.
The daily planner page for each day lists the date (day and month), the day of the week, the phase of the moon, and notes if there’s a holiday, and if so in which countries it’s observed. At the vertical midpoint of the page is a number “12,” which allows you to divide the page into AM and PM actuvities if you wish. At the bottom of the gridded space is a knife and fork symbol, which you can use to write down your dinner ideas or plans (I use this space to record what I actually had). Below the grid is a quote by a designer, thinker, author, etc.; these quotes aren’t exactly always uplifting, but they are generally interesting. (For example, the quote for January 2 reads: “I think that there is a difference between what we want to do and what we are capable of doing.”) There’s a lot going on in each spread, but the delicate lines and spare, sans-sarif font help maintain a clean and airy look.
At the back of the Techo there are 14 note pages, dot-grid printed in orange. Following that there are several pages of facts and information, such as international dialing codes, holidays of various countries, tips for traveling in Japan, and international clothing size charts. The last page has room for your personal details.
To be continued . . .
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