new article

src/content/blog/my-perfect-notebook.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+title: 'my perfect notebook'
+description: 'recently I purchased some very nice notebooks from an art supply store however they are not perfect yet, so I will outline the changing I am planning on making to them in order to make them suit my needs, as well as requirements for my perfect notebook'
+heroImage: '../../assets/article_hero_images/notebook.png'
+pubDate: 'Apr 19 2026'
+---
+
+A while back I bought a Samsung Galaxy phone with the stylus partly because I wanted a new phone and partly because I thought it would use useful to take notes.
+However, I found that when I would take notes on it the notes would just seem to fall into the bottomless pit (metaphorical bottomless, I have filled it with music) that is my phone.
+so in my final year of unit I started taken notes on paper instead of my phone or even an Ipad and found it a lot better. 
+Although I wanted a better writing experience since I have started doing more lab work where space tends to be at a premium.
+Therefor I recently purchased the [Ecoqua Original notebook](https://fabriano.com/en/product/ecoqua-original/) from fabriano.
+These notebooks are wonderfully sized somewhere just smaller than a sheet of A6 with as well as excellent paper quality sitting at 90gsm[^1] with no bleed through.
+Before this I was using [paperblanks notebooks](https://www.paperblanks.com/en/) and just like the Ecoqua they too have excellent although slightly thicker sitting at 120gsm as well as some very pretty colours. 
+Additionally, they also have a built-in document pocket and well as book ribbon and elastic or a clasp to hold the notebook close. 
+However, the largest downside of these notebooks were even in their smallest sizes (~A5) they were still too thick at 18mm with about 7mm of that coming from the covers.
+This thickness of the covers also makes it very difficult to hold a pen on it as well. 
+So for a notebook that can be crammed in to a pocket paperblanks notebooks just arnt feasible unlike the Ecoqua which are around 4-5mm thick.
+However, This is not to say the paperblanks notebooks are bad they are great a journaling notebooks (which I believe is what they actually sell them as).
+But this is not to say the Ecoqua doesnt have downsides too, the largest one being they are paperbacked and for a notebook I carry around there normally isnt a hard surface near when I intend to write something down.
+So that is the main problem I want a hardcover notebook that I can cram in my pocket and hold at least a pen as well as the obligatory of looking pretty.
+To convert these desires easier to in to a set of requirements using the [EARS format](https://alistairmavin.com/ears/):
+
+- The notebook shall be no larger than a sheet of A6 paper
+- The notebook shall be no thicker than a phone with a case (*this is mainly because most things are designed with phones in mind*)
+- The notebook shall contain some visual appeal
+- The notebook shall have a documents pocket
+- The notebook shall have a hardcover
+- the notebook shall have a location to store a pen
+
+Now time for the more gimmicky things I keep thinking would be nice in a notebook:
+
+- When the pen is removed from the notebook, the notebook can then be opened 
+    - this is primarily because when you open a notebook you intend to write in it.
+    Therefor requiring that the pen is removed in order to be opened would allow for a cleaner solution then a piece of elastic or a clasp that might not close if too many things are in the notebook
+- The notebook shall contain storage for additional drawing implements such as stencils and straight edges 
+- The notebook shall have the ablity to change the paper within it.
+
+for a design to meet these requirement I have created an [openscad script](https://git.sirlilpanda.studio/sirlilpanda/parametric-notebook) that generates a notebook based off of a page size.
+This notebook uses a hinge based design I originally saw from a creator called [dogteeth](https://www.dogteeth.co/) who created a notebook based off a fence hinge.
+
+![alt text](/perfect-notebook/notebook.png)
+
+However, I believe they did not take full use of the hinge designs additional the pages with in the notebook feel too tall.
+Although I do believe this is just due to their design using off the shelf parts and not custom fabrication.
+Therefor my plan is to take this same design expand out the metal holding the hinge to give more space for the paper.
+Additionally, I plan to create a hole through the hinge and using that to hold the pen much like a spiral bound notebook, this would also allow for the possibility of cutting a keyway in as well, meaning when the pen is inserted the notebook cannot open.
+However, this notebook design does have a major flaw and thats the hinge itself, when the notebook fully open the hinge sits in the middle causing there to be a bump in the middle of the notebook.
+One method of solving this could be to change to more of a notepad instead, but this changes the use of the notebook to a notepad, since notebook are there so you can look back through your notes where notepads are there to write notes down then discard of them.  
+
+There are other possible designs I may still look in to like lether bound notebooks where I might just embed some piece of hard material in, or maybe a spiral notebook with some hardcover.
+However for the mean time I will continue development on this current notebook possibility trying to find an alternative hinge mechanism with possible future updates to come.
+
+[^1]: gsm or Grammage is simply the ratio of the mass (g) of the paper compared to its area (m<sup>2</sup>), this unit does correlate to the thickness of the paper however higher gsm papers can be thinner then lower gsm papers.