Cognitive Surplus

I have seen numerous brands selling paper products that insist that recycled paper isn’t good enough quality to use for journaling. Instead you tend to see it used for newspapers, toilet paper, photocopy paper – that is, papers that aren’t designed to use with art materials. I have previously found one brand that had good quality paper that was 100% recycled from pre-consumer waste (offcuts and leftovers from the factory recycled into new paper). Cognitive Surplus is the first brand I’ve found that has post-consumer waste recycled paper, with a dot grid marking, that actually copes pretty well with my pens, markers and watercolours. It just doesn’t cope with fountain pens.

My in-depth review video looks at the construction and features of the journal, the quality of the paper, interesting information about the company, and includes a pen test of a full range of pens and watercolour paints. See my pen test page for an explanation of each test.