10 Oct 2013

review: grandluxe monologue notebooks and diaries

I'm a sucker for notebooks and stationery products that come in a variety of cute colours so when I found out about the Grandluxe Monologue range, I was excited to find out more.

Danhong from Grandluxe kindly sent me the following sample products to review:

From left to right: a Platinum A5 notebook in Gold, an A4 sketchbook in orange, an Executive Portfolio Planner and anA6 diary in Blackberry.

The Monologue range of notebooks and diaries come in a variety of sizes and Grandluxe also do other ranges of stationery products so the sample you can see in the picture above is only a small selection of what Grandluxe offer.

First up, the gold Monologue Platinum notebook:


The pages are all gold gilt-edged and the cover is also gold in colour. I wouldn't describe the cover as hard or soft - it is in between and the elastic is also gold in colour. This notebook also comes in black, bronze and silver.


Inside, the pages are ruled - and the rule isn't too wide or too narrow. For me, it is perfect :) The paper is 80gsm in weight and at the front, there are some pages dedicated to 'personal notes', addresses and a few pages where you can note down blog/website names and their URLs. The A5 size of this notebook retails at £9.99.

Next up, the A4 sketchbook:


This sketchpad is really, really impressive. The pigmentation of the orange cover is brilliant (not a dull orange by any means) and the paper quality is excellent.


The paper is 140gsm and is acid free. It can take watercolour paints and all sorts of pens without any bleeding or show-through. This sketchpad retails at £16.99 for the A4 size and would make a wonderful gift for anyone who is studying Art at GCSE/A-Level/University level or for anyone who enjoys doing creative things in their spare time. This sketchpad also comes in a variety of sizes and colours.


Next up is the A6 diary in the blackberry colour:


Instead of being one colour, the elastic is made up of three different shades of purple and the cover is hard but with a soft PU covering.


Inside, it is a week-to-view layout with the paper being 80gsm.


At the back, there is also a world atlas, inner pocket, various standard reference pages and pages for: important dates, meeting dates and times, emails and website addresses and notes.

This diary retails at £7.99 but they also come in other colours and sizes. The one complaint I have with them is that although they are week-to-view and the pages are ruled; the lines don't extend into the space under the day. This means there is quite a bit of space wasted.

Finally, the Executive Portfolio Planner:


This one is my favourite product by a country mile and I will proceed to show you why.


Inside, there is a secretarial pocket with a slot on the pocket too. The diary slots into the planner into the cover in a similar manner to how you slot notebooks into the Filofax Flex covers.

The diary is really quite comprehensive and actually has a lot of extra pages that will come in useful to many people. For example, there are pages for leave and these would come in useful for those running a business or for anyone tracking their own annual leave/holidays.


There are also Financial Summary pages and Email and Website Address pages.


Now, onto the bulk of the diary. Each month has a divider/tab that sticks out and on each tab is a month-view on one side and Expenses on the other side.


The diary pages themselves are week-to-view and ruled with the weekends sharing the space of a weekday.


At the back, there are notes pages...


Address and Telephone pages...


And also a pull out planner for 2014...


Which has the 2015 planner on the reverse.


The annual planner folds so that it fits in perfectly and at the back, there is a card-holder insert with a bookmark that can be used to keep your place in the diary.


The bookmark is connected to the diary by a ribbon and is only made of thin card so I do have concerns over how durable it will be after a few weeks or months of use.


The Portfolio Planner also has a pen loop and also some elastic to hold it together. It also comes in other colours. Personally, I think this planner could be perfect for a student as you can put in a slim A5 notebook for notetaking with the diary also in the cover.

Overall, I am impressed with the quality of the products and the variety of them too. I think they have products that appeal to many markets and the prices are quite reasonable too. If I had to compare them to a similar company, it would have to be the Moleskine brand; but with the added bonus being that the quality of products are definitely better.

You can buy these products on their Online Store or on Amazon; and to find out more, Grandluxe also have a Facebook page.

Thank you, Danhong from Grandluxe for sending me these products for review.

NB: Although I received these products as samples, I have reviewed them just as I would have if I had paid for them.

3 comments

  1. aww I can't find the executive planner anywhere online to buy... is it for sale yet? x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Annee,

    As this product is not listed on our Amazon website, kindly write in to export@grandluxe.com.sg or sales@grandluxe.com.sg.

    Many thanks!

    PS Angela: Thanks for the review! (:

    Danhong
    Grandluxe

    ReplyDelete
  3. hey, i have lots of notebooks and i don't know what i shall do with it.. can you please tell me some organizing tips or tell me what notebooks you have and what you do with it? ^^

    thank you :)

    ReplyDelete