Rhodia WebPlanner 2012 Review and 2 New Tangle Patterns-Tinfoil & Squaremond

Rhodia WebPlanner 2012

I won’t describe the little jig I did when Karen (thank you, Karen!) at Exaclair agreed to send me a Rhodia WebPlanner 2012 for review, because my dance was just undignified.

Nothing undignified about the WebPlanner, though.  It has Rhodia's signature silky smooth paper, and the overall look aims at elegance rather than flash.  You’d think elegance would be difficult when some of the print is orange.  However, combined with gray print, it has a surprising sophistication.

I’ll try not to gush too much, because I like to let people make up their own minds about a product, but I did find this planner a pleasure to hold and view.  The grid pages invited me to use them, and I was inspired to create two new tangle patterns (actually four, but I haven’t had the chance to draw up the other two).  I’ll share those later in the post.

The 3 month-at-a-glance that is on every other page is in light orange, and that is the only quibble I have with this planner.  I have to admit—compositionally the orange works.  But functionally, I think it’s too light for my old eyes.

The hard-cover has some flex to it, is lightly-textured, charcoal black and stamped with ‘2012’ on the front.  It has a pocket inside the back, a ribbon for book-marking and an elastic closure to hold the journal shut.

The planner runs from mid-December 2012 thru Mid-January 2013.

Each week has a two page spread, with a Monday-Sunday layout on one side, including day of the week, the month, and a 7am to 8pm schedule.  Each day is numbered (Day 1 to 365) and number of days left in the year is given (cool!). 

On the other side there is a grid for notes or doodling.  The weeks are numbered (Week 1 to 52) and a 3 month-at-a-glance is at the bottom.

Every page has a tear-away piece so you can quickly flip to the current week.

Reference pages abound.  So many that it would slow down the review to list them all at this point, but I’ll add them at the end of the post.  Despite the number of ‘extras’ the planner is surprisingly slim and light. 

A sewn-binding allows the planner to lie completely flat, with no inclination to flip even when you get to the middle.

I did a pen and doodle test.  There is some shadowing on the back of the page where I shaded heavily.  I suspect some fountain pen inks would spot, but wasn’t able to get spotting with any of my disposable fountain pens, ball-points or art pens. 

I used my Letraset Promarkers, which did, of course, bleed though, but both the gray and orange printing is still readable, so you can color, and still use the weekly plan layout.

The planner comes in two sizes.  I received the large size (6 1/4 x 9 1/2" (16 x 24 cm), and there is also a Pocket sizes-4" x 6" (10 x 15 cm).

Now for the two new tangles, Squaremond and Tinfoil.  Enjoy!

And I didn’t forget!

The Practical Information pages:

Personal Note Page

International Telephone Access Codes

Monthly Average Temperatures in the World

Chart of International Holidays

Year-At-A-Glance 2012

January 2013-At-A-Glance

Year-At-A-Glance 2013

Maps of North America, South America, Europe, Australia & New Zealand, Africa, and Asia

Calendars for 2011-2012-2013

Seven Address pages