I have always been curious as to why Rhodia notepads have violet lines. When I was growing up, my notebook paper and notebooks had blue lines. Some sported a red line near the margin or header. 
So I put the question to someone who would know…..why does Rhodia have violet lines? She said, “More restful for the eyes.”
What do you think? Is violet less obtrusive than blue? Does violet work better with grid formats? Is it more soothing on your eyes?
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Comments
Actually, the heavy purple lines are the one thing I can’t stand about Rhodia — way too obtrusive. I am thrilled that I can now get the dot pad. I always wished that Rhodia had light gray lines.
Not sure if this is connected, but in olden days, French schoolkids used violet ink from dip pens. The teachers would make fresh batches of ink from powdered ink and water as needed. By my time (eighties), we used blue ink from fountain pens with cartridges.
I love it, it is much soothing on the eyes and esthetically extremely pleasing.
To me, the pale blue lines on cheap paper are a let down.
Speaking of lines, it would be nice if Rhodiapads.com showed a close of each ruling available for the line.
I also see that there is no mention of Seyes ruling.
I agree with the violet being better than blue, especially for grids.
I am also happily surprised by the brown used in the fieldnotesbrand.com books.
Blue is a harsh colour to my mind.
Absolutely! I don’t use the grid, but violet gives faint contrast to blue inks and makes fast scan of notes easier to my tired eyes.
Hmmmm.. I thought there were samples of the different rulings on the site… perhaps that was in an old blog post here on Rhodia Drive. Regarding Seyes (French) ruling, to the best of my knowledge, Exaclair isn’t importing any of the French ruled to the US unless someone special orders it. You might want to check with Gouletpens.com, as I know that he has placed a few special orders from the master Clairefontaine catalog from time to time.
That is interesting to know! I have a faint recollection of someone telling me that they used Herbin’s Violette Pensee ink as a child…..
I totally agree with Dan, the first commenter. The only Rhodia pads I use are the dot pads.
As an engineering major in college, we used green graph paper pads where the grid was printed on the underside of the paper and just showed through enough to be useful. That was a great feature, but we always used pencil. I’m not sure you could do the same thing on paper that is suitable for fountain pens.
And, Stephanie’s hunch was a good one. Goulet pens does indeed offer French-ruled Clairefontaine notebooks. I have been using one to practice my handwriting (a lost cause, French ruling or no).
Many cameras & copy machines do not photograph purple very well. I used to use a purple for guide lines for drafting. They rarely showed when making blueprints or pHoto copies.
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