Appearance and function match the final product, but is made with different manufacturing methods.

Looks like the final product, but is not functional.

Demonstrates the functionality of the final product, but looks different.

A prototype is a preliminary model of something. Projects that offer physical products need to show backers documentation of a working prototype. This gallery features photos, videos, and other visual documentation that will give backers a sense of what’s been accomplished so far and what’s left to do. Though the development process can vary for each project, these are the stages we typically see:

These photos and videos provide a detailed look at this project’s development.

[Update #6: All 4 Elements will now be available and don't forget about the Unobtanium pocket notebooks as an Add-On]

Who are we?

Elemental Notebooks was founded by Greg and Laurie Krumm in 2017. It is the result of a convergence of passions for the Elements of the Periodic Table, Notebooks, and Fountain Pens. We set out to make a series of notebooks that celebrate the building blocks of life, while still being one of the best writing experiences available.

Through this Kickstarter we hope to be able to begin production on our first 4 notebooks: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. By mass, these elements make up 96.6% of the human body, so we thought they were a fitting place to start our journey.

With your help, we can continue on to make even more of the 118 current elements.

Meet the Notebooks

Carbon (Unlocked)

Our Carbon notebook is a fully blacked-out design, aside from its silver bookmark. We chose black since almost every allotrope of Carbon is visibly black, not to mention the fact that the all black combination looks amazing.

Hydrogen (Unlocked)

Our Hydrogen notebook has a light-grey cover, which contrasts beautifully with the black printed paper edges and the black foil stamping on the spine. Hydrogen was a challenge to choose colors for since it's almost always a colorless gas, but we ended up coming across research that found that at extremely high pressure and extremely low temperatures, Hydrogen will become a silvery grey solid.

(Note: The prototype has a dark grey bookmark which will be substituted for black during the final print run)

Oxygen (Unlocked)

Our Oxygen notebook has a brilliant lake/azure blue cover and bookmark, silver foil stamping on the spine, and a white bookmark. Blue was chosen because by mass, 88.88% of water is Oxygen by mass and Liquid Oxygen is light blue in color.

Nitrogen (Unlocked)

Our Nitrogen notebook is an homage to the great pine forests of Oregon. The Nitrogen cycle plays a vital role in the nutrition and growth of every plant on earth. Nitrogen is also key to our bodies creation of DNA, RNA, and Amino acids.

Unobtanium (Add-On Item: $10/pack)

Due to an overwhelming demand for Unobtanium to be available regardless of Achievements, we have decided to let people back them as an add-on item. To keep this simple, we will be offering them as a 3-pack for $10 (Multiple packs can be backed if you would like).

The specifications of these notebooks are:

3.5x5.5"

48 Pages of the exact same paper in the regular notebooks

Dot Grid Interior Ruling

Leatherette cover with Unobtanium symbol foil stamping

Matching green spine stitching and end-sheet colors

If you would like to add these to your please follow the steps below:

1. Click the “manage your pledge” button on the project page.

2. Increase your pledge by $10 for each pack you would like to add.

3. Save your pledge. Do not change the tier that you originally pledged at.

(For our small handful of backers using the no reward pledge, please be aware that if you want Unobtanium notebooks we will have to charge shipping on these notebooks during the survey phase. If you are already receiving one of the regular notebooks (99% of backers), there will be no additional shipping charge)

What makes our notebooks special?

Each notebook has been designed to be outwardly minimal, but still have some subtle features that make each notebook special.

Each spine has been foil stamped with the elements square from the periodic table

The covers are also a 3-piece construction which keeps the spine from forming creases over time while still letting the notebook lay flat.

The paper edges have the elements emission spectrum printed against a black background

Inside the front cover is the elements Bohr model and a periodic table shaped contact form. (Note: Although the Bohr model is not technically the most up to date way to represent an elements orbitals, we decided to stick with it since presenting the orbitals of larger atoms would become extremely unwieldy in the limited space we're working with)

Notebooks are shipped in high-quality packaging. Each notebook gets its own matching slipcase for safe shipping and storage.

What are the notebook specifications?

Dot Grid Spacing: 5mm

Lined Spacing: 6mm

How good is the paper?

When we set out to make these notebooks, the paper quality was our biggest priority. We spent 3 months collecting paper samples from 10 different paper manufacturers and testing them with a wide variety of writing instruments (Pencils, Pens, Fountain Pens).

Being fountain pen users ourselves, one of us even having the "fortune" of being a lefty sidewriter, we wanted to find a paper that both handled the ink well but also had a fast enough dry time for lefties. This ruled out many papers like Tomoe River due to their exceptionally long dry times.

The paper we ended up selecting is much more akin to that of Leuchtturm, Baron Fig, Code & Quill, etc. It has a nice smoothness to it, but still enough tooth for pencil work. At 100gsm, bleed-through and bothersome ghosting are a thing of the past. The paper is acid-free for long-term storage and also has very little/no feathering with fountain pen ink.

Writing Samples with Organics Studio Anniversary Collection (TWSBI Eco T Medium Nib)

Handwriting Sample

Note: The dots in our prototype are darker than our final print run will be. The prototypes are 60% greyscale, final notebooks will be 30%.

Sheen

Our paper is also able to show some sheen. It's admittedly not quite the sheener that Tomoe River paper is, but it can hold its own compared to most other papers out there. The ink in the below video is ink color #8 from the Organics Studio Anniversary collection.

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Reward Tiers

Stretch Goals

Page Numbers

Index/Table of Contents Pages

Achievements

Waiting a month for a Kickstarter campaign to end can be a little boring, so we wanted to try and build a community around our notebooks and hopefully have some fun while we're at it.

In case you haven't noticed yet, we're a little obsessed with the Periodic Table, but without the scientific community the Periodic Table would be missing a lot of elements. We need your help to re-discover the elements on our Periodic Table.

To do this, we have broken each group of elements into a series of experiments. Some experiments need you to help us build our sample group size and some need you to help us add some variables. We've tried to keep it fun and kid friendly so feel free to get the whole family involved on the real-world experiments!

Achievement Rewards

20 Elements Discovered - Every Backer gets a Periodic Table Desktop Wallpaper

40 Elements Discovered - Every Backer receiving a notebook gets an Elemental sticker

60 Elements Discovered - Every Backer receiving a notebook gets an 11x17 print of our Periodic Table

80 Elements Discovered - Every Backer receiving a notebook will get element stickers for every notebook they order (i.e. get a Carbon sticker with your Carbon notebook)

100 Elements Discovered - The Periodic Table print will be upgraded to a larger 18x24 poster size

118 Elements Discovered - We will include a FREE pocket-sized notebook in the shipment of each backer receiving a notebook. This pocket notebook will be called "Unobtanium" and will be a Kickstarter exclusive print. (Backers getting 4 or more notebooks will get upgraded to a 3 pack of pocket notebooks)

Elements Discovered

18/118

Last updated 3/10

Experiments

Experiment #1: "Showing Signs of Life"

Hypothesis: There are a large amount of people who love both stationery and science.

Test: Back our project and let others know about it.

Results:

Experiment #2: "There's Gold In These Metals"

Hypothesis: The sample group from Experiment #1 thinks our product is worth the money.

Test: Back our project and let others know about it.

Results:

Experiment #3: "Positively Glowing"

Hypothesis: Facebook isn't going the way of Myspace ... yet.

Test: Like our Facebook Page

Results:

Experiment #4: "Happy to Share"

Hypothesis: Our backers want to tell their friends about our notebooks.

Test: Share our Kickstarter page on Facebook

Results:

Experiment #5: "Grassroots Movement"

Hypothesis: Our Twitter isn't a Fail Whale

Test: Follow us on Twitter

Results:

Experiment #6: "280 Character Semiconductors"

Hypothesis: Our backers want to tell their friends about our notebooks.

Test: Share our Kickstarter Page on Twitter

Results:

Experiment #7: "Reactive Fanbase"

Hypothesis: Our Instagram's worth a gram

Test: Follow us on Instagram

Results:

Experiment #8: "Post A Transition"

Hypothesis: Our backers don't mind telling us what's on their mind.

Tests: Each element in the Post-Transition Metals is its own thought experiment. We need 25 people to post a response to each question/request. Please post it to Twitter, mention @elementalpaper, and use the hashtag for the element the experiment is for (i.e #Aluminum).

#Aluminum/#Aluminium - Tell us whether you say Aluminum or Aluminium.

#Gallium - Tell us what element you'd like to see us make next

#Indium - Tweet @ your favorite science museum to let them know why they're awesome

#Tin - Tell us a Chemistry joke

#Thallium - Tweet @ your favorite stationery blogger to let them know about our notebooks

#Lead - Tell us your idea for the name of element 119 (besides Unobtanium)

#Nihonium - Tell us what your favorite element/element group is

#Flerovium - Tweet a Haiku about your favorite element - Examples

#Moscovium - If you could have a chat with a scientist that has died, who would you talk to and what would you ask them?

#Livermorium - Free space. Tweet @ us with whatever's on your mind!

Results:

Experiment #9: "Rare-Earthlings"

Hypothesis: Science Experiments are fun and our backers have the photos to prove it

Tests: Each element in the Lanthanides is its own science experiment. We need 5 people to complete each experiment and post a photo of it. Please post it to either Twitter or Instagram, mention @elementalpaper, and use the hashtag for the element the experiment is for (i.e #Lanthanum).

Most importantly have fun and be safe!

#Lanthanum - Make Rock Candy - Instructions

#Cerium - Make Eggshell Geode Crystals - Instructions

#Praseodymium - Color Flowers Green - Instructions

#Neodymium - Make an Electromagnet - Instructions

#Promethium - Make a Paper Clip Float - Instructions

#Samarium - Bend Water With Static Electricity - Instructions

#Europium - Bend a Chicken Bone - Instructions

#Gadolinium - Make a Bouncy Ball - Instructions

#Terbium - Make a Levitating Orb - Instructions

#Dysprosium - Make Plastic Milk - Instructions

#Holmium - Grow bacteria in a Petri Dish - Instructions

#Erbium - Make a Drink of Density - Instructions

#Thulium - Turn some pennies green - Instructions

#Ytterbium - Assemble a 3D Periodic Table - Instructions

#Lutetium - Take of picture of yourself in a lab coat

Results:

Experiment #10: "Radioactive Experiments"

Hypothesis: Science Experiments are fun and our backers have the videos to prove it

Tests: Each element in the Actinides is its own science experiment. We need 3 people to complete each experiment and post a video of it. Please post it to either Twitter or Instagram, mention @elementalpaper, and use the hashtag for the element the experiment is for (i.e #Actinium).

Most importantly have fun and be safe!

#Actinium - Make Elephant Toothpaste - Instructions

#Thorium - Make Colors Dance in Milk - Instructions

#Protactinium - Make Slime - Instructions

#Uranium - Make a Lava Lamp - Instructions

#Neptunium - Make a Volcano - Instructions

#Plutonium - Make a Fizz Inflator - Instructions

#Americium - Make Ketchup Float or Sink - Instructions

#Curium - Make a Soap Powered Boat - Instructions

#Berkelium - Make an Exploding Lunch Bag - Instructions

#Californium - Make a Balloon Hovercraft - Instructions

#Einsteinium - Make Color Changing Liquid - Instructions

#Fermium - Build a Film Canister Rocket - Instructions

#Mendelevium - Make Lava in a Cup - Instructions

#Nobelium - Make a Cup that sounds like a Chicken - Instructions

#Lawrencium - Make a video of you singing the the Periodic Table Song - Original Video

Results: