Information on material used.

Technical details for paper-lovers.
No-run, surface sized, heavy, smooth natural paper made of pure cellulose. Ideal for hand-writing. Cream, with 90% opacity. Manufactured in Italy, FSC certified, bleached without the use of chlorine, age-resistant (according to DIN 6738), suitable for laser and ink-jet printer.

Manufactum’s ATOMA loose-leaf binders – notebook and organizer in one. Ready-to-use or assemble as you wish.

Last year we presented you with the Belgian ATOMA note-book system for the first time. It’s 60 years old, and consists simply of circular rings and loose-leaf sheets of paper. As you will see, there is a wide variety of lined and plain paper formats available – with patented holes for extra-easy insertion or extraction – to help you put your note-books together to suit your particular needs: the plain sheets are good for copying your own designs e.g. from your PC, like official documents, calendars or address books. Since last year we’ve worked on the quality of the paper itself, the range of loose leaf refills and the binder covers, and also seen to the production, for the first time, of a special ATOMA punch.

Our paper: real writing paper.

Practically all so-called "writing paper" is actually designed nowadays to be run through offset or office printers - to the detriment of those of us who prefer to write by hand, using pen or pencil. It wasn't easy, but we finally found some real paper tailored to the needs of you rather special people. Your pen or pencil will simply glide over the paper, and, what's more, what you write will retain its shape without running - even graphite will leave a clean, uniform image.

Ruling.
We've had our paper printed with the usual lined and squared ruling plus two special types:

Cornell Notes.
An academic classic from the United States, designed in 1950 by Walter Pauk from Cornell University for organizing seminar notes. On the left is an 'organisation' margin for the day's agenda and structure, in the middle a broad 'content' column and at the bottom a space for 'things to do' and / or summary. We can say from experience that it's a great help to structure one's notes in the fashion we've just described.

From matchstick to 3-D-man.
After a bit of practice you can give the matchstick man quite a bit of depth on our paper - the technique's called "parallel projection". Some people prefer to do their 3-D's as doodles during long, boring 'phone calls; others use them to sharpen their wits. It's quite amazing how naturally untalented draughtsmen have managed to master the third dimension (even the mysteries of perspective) using this method.

The ATOMA construction set.

In order to 'compose' your personal ATOMA notebook from the following parts, you'll need:

• the aluminium rings (that is 11 for an A4- or 8 for an A5-notebook),
• a set of covers, made of Texon and available in regular A4 or A5 formats and - in case you plan to include any of the index sheets also on offer - wide A4 or wide A5 formats,
• loose-leaf refills with the required patented ATOMA hole shapes, sizes A4 or A5
• and, if you like, write-on index sheets with 6x-index available in wide A4 and wide A5 formats.

Assembly is incredibly easy: first, mount the aluminium rings to the back cover; then add the loose-leaf sheets, about 8 at a time; finally, place the front cover on top and mount it to the rings. By the way: we still have all our blank versions on offer as ready-made notebooks and notepads.