hard cover for B6 notebooks - EISVOGEL
Today I would like to do something different, no talk about paper, or pens, or notebooks or planners, but I would like to show you a cover for B6 notebooks 😊
I would say there are millions of notebook covers out there, buyable wherever you can think of. Very often for A5 notebooks or A6, very often in TN style with an elastic band for special slim sizes. I don`t want to start with all the ring covers like Filofax or Gillio or van der Spek or even discbound like William Hannah.
Today I would like to show you a cover for notebooks or planners in B6 size
B6 sized covers are rare, and very often they are soft covers, made out of leather or fabric.
But I`m always looking for hard covers where a soft cover notebook is well protected.
For A5 or A6 notebooks I have found the very lovely wood covers from Jungholz Design in Germany. Perfect for any A6 notebooks with a soft cover, like Stalogy or Hobonichi Techo.
But, they do not create B6 covers.
But, there is another company in Germany, they create hard covers which can be used for B6 notebooks: a company called Eisvogel Notes.
They call it Eisvogel Classic Notebook, the size is 15,3 cm wide and 19,5 cm high.
And this makes it perfect for any B6 or B6 Japan notebook.
(B6 would be 12,5x17,6 cm and B6 Japan would be 12,8x18,2 cm.)
The cover is made out of very sturdy cardboard, there are round elastics for up to 3 notebooks and a separate flat elastic for closure, just like in a Leuchtturm notebook for example.
Otherwise this cover does not have "anything else" and is very minimalistic!
No pocket, no pen loop, no nothing!
Beautiful in itself and just a cover 😊
The outside is available in a lot of beautiful colors, the inside is in black.
They even offer sometimes limited art editions.
I would compare the system to the Traveller Notebook system. You have a cover with elastics which hold your books into place.
But there is one big difference: the elastics are not bound together with a knot which always creates a bump in the middle which I do not like at all.
These elastics have a little thingy at the end ... please do not ask me how they are called in english, I had a hard time finding it out in german! In german they are called "Splinten". Little metall things which, bent together, hold your elastic string and then you can put it through a little hole in the cover.
(Does anyone know the word in english? Please let me know, that would be great!).
a picture says more than thousand words:
You have two holes in the middle at the spine and two at the right side for the closure.
Eisvogel adds three elastics to your order to hold up to three notebooks within the cover.
the picture shows one round elastic in the middle and the flat elastic for closure.
When you order such a cover Eisvogel will add up to three thin notebooks. The notebooks have a size of 14 x 19 cm, not really a common size, bigger than B6 or even B6 Japan.
The booklets are made out of 100gsm paper, have dots or are blank (both with 48 pages = 24 sheets), the paper has an offwhite color.
They offer a planner as well, a week on one page for 2023.
To be honest the paper is not the very best for fountain pens. A lot of inks bleed through this paper or feather. Might work well with ballpoint pens or pencils.
But, I didn`t buy it because of the paper but because of the cover 😉
And here we go back to the beginning of this blog post: I was always looking for hard covers for B6 notebooks, and when I saw these covers in this Classic size I thought that these might be perfect for B6 notebooks!
And yes, I can testify, B6 notebooks fit very very well into these covers!
for example:
- Stalogy B6 365 pages
- Muji B6 planners
- Franklin Planner Japan daily planner in B6
I don`t really like the round elastics, the bump they create is just too big for my taste. But the flat elastic used for closure is just perfect to add one thicker notebook.
I don`t need a closure anyway so I swapped out the elastics and I`m now using the flat elastic to hold my Stalogy notebook.
You can use top tabs or side tabs and I would say, if you add a self adhesive pen loop from Leuchtturm for example, you can even fit the pen beside the notebook without the pen hanging out because there is enough room once closed.
Here a view from the top with the Stalogy B6 inside:
and it stays closed even without the elastic closure:
There is another nice B6 planner on the market this year, it is as well a company from Germany: PaperTessDesigns
Tess has created a B6 yearly planner with white Tomoe River Paper with a very nice layout and 4mm grid allover.
This planner does not really fit into the Eisvogel cover, it is a very tiny bit too thick!
Remember, the cover is a hard cardboard and does not mold around your planner.
In this picture it looks fine because the bottom was squished together for taking this picture:
but this picture, lying down, shows that the cover does not close entirely:
I guess it will be fine if you use the closure, then it will close up just fine but if you bulk up your planner a lot then you might run into problems.
Here is a picture of the spine with one round elastic and the backside with their logo in sparkly blue:
Eisvogel ships for sure within the European Union.
I had to contact them directly to get a cover to me here in Switzerland but they were able to manage it.
I have no idea about worldwide shipping, I guess the best will be to contact them directly and ask about shipping.
This cover might not be for somebody who wants to have some fancy one with pockets and zippers or pen loops. But for somebody like me who loves minimalistic things and who does not bulk up any notebook, this cover is just perfect for B6 sized notebooks 😊
I hope you enjoyed my post and like reading about stationery things!
Thank you to all, stay healthy and (planner) peace to everyone!
Andrea ✒🖋💙💚💛
P.S. I have bought all my planners myself, I paid for them, I state my own personal opinions about them. When you click a link which I have added for you to see the items which I`m talking about I do not get paid for it.