No clipboard as we know it

tobewoodenboard4The Banditapple carnet x ToBe wooden board
tobewoodenboard1

Because of Kent from Pencilog I got to know Arnie, the guy behind Banditapple, and because of Arnie I got to know Eun Suk Bang, the designer behind ToBe Story.

I really love the Banditapple carnets, I must have used them for more than five years now (just because my first review of them was a bit more than five years ago) and together with Atoma they are definitely one of my two favourite notebooks. Banditapple has the better paper, Atoma is more practical in terms of reorganising/reshuffling things around within the notebook.

My recent Lamy Line Friends and Banditapple carnet order also included two items from Eun Suk. One of them was the “wooden board”, being described as a little table to write on. The idea came from the fact the carnets are made from a tree, as should the surface be you put them on.

tobewoodenboard2The wooden board is not only designed by her, she is also making them herself. Each board takes three to five days to manufacture, which involves cutting beech plywood with a CNC machine as well as applying three oil coatings before they get to dry.

They were sold in May this year as the Banditapple carnet x ToBe: wooden board. The price was $15. It was one of a number of side projects Banditapple was taking part in, all with low numbers of items being handmade and all of the items sold out very fast. There’s a good chance the wooden board will be available again if there is enough demand.

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If have used the board many times when I needed a surface to write on and when the board was nearby. It was always very hand. There are three strings, so you can attach three notebooks if you want, but I usually just used it as a surface to write on.  tobewoodenboard6

Despite my admiration for the simple beauty of this board I have to say that there are also drawbacks, mainly that I haven’t figured out whether there’s an easy way of writing on the left pages of your notebooks if you use the wooden board as a clipboard and that the wooden board is only useful is you have it with you, but for practical reasons you usually wouldn’t have the board with you when you need it, unless you use it as a stationary notebook holder / organiser. In any case, it is a beautiful board!

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Just a reminder, since I changed the WordPress Theme a few months ago most images are available in high resolution. Open them in a new tab for the hires version.

You can read more Banditapple related posts here. The Well-Appointed Desk has reviewed them, too.

You can read more about the John Lewis pencil used in the last photo in this blog post.

You can read more about the Noris colour used in the last photo in this blog post.

4 thoughts on “No clipboard as we know it”

  1. For writting on the left pages of notebooks, remove the notebook, rotate the clipboard so that the strings are on the right hand side, and then reinsert the notebook, the left pages will now be against the clipboard.

  2. I’ve always used a piece of scrap ply & drawing board clips (bulldog clips for thicker pads) for soft cover sketchbooks.

    I like the elegance of this though – it’s a great idea to use elasticated cords to hold the books in place.

  3. That’s a good idea. It might be a similar experience.

    This board is really quite elegant – and it fits with my plywood pen stands ( http://bleistift.memm.de/?p=1184 ). The cords are a great idea. I have a Midori Traveler Copy that is using a similar system.

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