Baron Fig and Box

The Baron Fig notebook was originally a Kickstarter project that far surpassed its original funding goals to get produced.  As you can see above, the premium notebook has a bit of a minimalist look and comes in its own box, reminiscent of Levenger notebooks.

Baron Fig Page Marker

Besides having a book cloth cover that has a nice textured feel, the page finder ribbon that is used also shares a similar and somewhat “raw” feel that adds to the minimalist look and feel of the Baron Fig Confidant notebook, which I personally like.  I’ve seen some people complain that the end of the ribbon isn’t finished in a way that will keep it from fraying, but this isn’t a big deal to me and I think it could end up giving your notebook a little bit of additional character should it start to fray.  Although they do advertise that the Baron Fig lays flat, I found that it did require a heavy hand to get this to happen and it wasn’t always perfectly flat and open.

Baron Fig Confidant Open Flat

On the inside cover of the Baron Fig Confidant notebook, you can see there is a small box where you can write down your contact information should you misplace your notebook and its finder decides to return it to you.  The rounded edges of the notebook are always a nice touch because I generally tend to find that notebooks with right angle and squared corners tend to get banged up a bit and lose their visual appeal.

Baron Fig Confidant Branding

The minimalist appearance of the Baron Fig notebook is most highly emphasized by the lack of any branding at all except for on the back inside cover of the notebook.  With a simple printing of the name and extra information on the back of the last page in the notebook, its clearly meant to be out of the way and not in your face.  I appreciate this and definitely like the overall look at adds to the notebook.  I am a little disappointed that the Baron Fig Confidant notebook only comes with the gray book cloth cover because some additional colors would be a nice touch.  I’m also a bit worried that the light gray cover on the Baron Fig could become a magnet for scuffs and dirt which could make the notebook a look a little less appealing.

Baron Fig Review Writing Samples

Here are a few writing samples in the Baron Fig Confidant notebook that give you an idea how fountain pen friendly these notebooks are:

Baron Fig Confidant with Noodlers Forest Green

Using some Noodler’s Forest Green fountain pen ink in my stainless steel Lamy Studio was one of the writing samples that turned out pretty nicely in the Baron Fig notebook.  It left a pretty crisp line with minimal feathering.  The only issues I found was with some slightly long dry times, which you will see is a consistent issue with most of the inks used here in this notebook.

Baron Fig Delicate Green

Next up is the Caran d’Ache Delicate Green ink that we recently reviewed.  There was definitely some feathering with this ink in the Baron Fig notebook, as well as a fairly long dry time.  Additionally you can see on the previous page on the left, there is a decent amount of see-through with the ink too.  Coincidentally I started the writing sample on the previous page with this ink and made a mistake but was able to at least use that page to display the see-through you get.

Baron Fig Confidant with Pelikan Edelstein Topaz Ink

One of my all time favorite inks are the Pelikan Edelstein series, and the Topaz color is probably m favorite in that series.  Its a very well behaved ink that I’ve used quite a bit and was happy to see that other than the dry time it did very well in the writing samples here in the Baron Fig Confidant notebook.  It showed no feathering effects and there was very minimal see-through on the next page.

Baron Fig Bernanke Blue

One of my other favorite inks is Noodler’s Bernanke Blue, which is a quick drying ink and a clor that I really love.  I was quite disappointed with this ink in the Baron Fig notebook though.  There was a surprising bit of feathering and spreading with this ink on the Baron Fig Confidant 100g paper.  The best place to spot this in the writing sample above is in the “y” in the word “Supply” where it goes below the underline.  The “y” gets really messy looking and fat even with a fine nib doing the writing.  The upside with this ink was that the dry time was VERY fast, which I’m assuming is because the ink absorbs very quickly into the paper which is probably what causes the feathering and spreading.  Its pretty much a double edge sword.  I don’t have any other quick drying inks, but I’d be willing to bet that they might perform the same way on this paper, just a hunch though.

Bernanke Blue See Through

You can also see here that the see through with the Bernanke Blue was quite bad on the Baron Fig Confidant notebook paper.  It makes the other side of the paper pretty much unusable with this ink.

Overall I’d have to say that our Baron Fig review got some pretty sporadic results.  The notebook is definitely constructed in a way that you know quality was a focus, and I really do love the minimalist look of it.  We did find some inks that worked well with the paper in this notebook, but there were also some unpleasant surprises like the Bernanke Blue.  If you have an ink that you really like and it works well with this notebook, then you will probably really enjoy using it.  On the other hand, if you switch up inks pretty frequently, I’m sure you will probably run into some inks that just don’t work well with this paper.  bottom line is that the look and feel are great, but the inconsistency of how well different inks are handled could be a deal breaker for some.  Definitely check them out though over at the Baron Fig site because its still a fantastic notebook if you don’t plan on using a fountain pen with it.

©2015, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.