Virtually Indestructible

The Field Notes Expedition Edition marked the start of our fifth year of Quarterly Editions. In that time, we had explored a wide variety of papers, colours, and printing techniques, but with this new Expedition edition, for the first time, we actually expanded the type of paper used in our notebooks.

Aesthetically, you’ll find a design with plenty to like: a hi-visibility “Antarctic Survey Orange” front cover and “Polar Night Black” back cover, with a subtle varnish effect featuring a topographic map of Antarctica. The body pages feature our popular dot-graph paper printed in light gray.

But the real innovation here is the paper. It’s maybe not even fair to call it paper. The whole book is printed on Yupo Synthetic paper, an amazing tearproof and waterproof paper extruded from polypropylene pellets in Chesapeake, Virginia. We could go on and on about our new notebooks’ durability and incredible properties, and we will, in this series of 12 (reasonably) scientific tests:

TEST 1: WATERPROOF
TEST 2: VISIBILITY
TEST 3: WIND RESISTANCE
TEST 4: BALLISTICS
TEST 5: VACUUM
TEST 6: TENSILE STRENGTH
TEST 7: COMPRESSION
TEST 8: ACID RESISTANCE
TEST 9: FLAME RESISTANCE
TEST 10: EXTREME TEMPERATURE
TEST 11: ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES
TEST 12: ELECTRICAL RESISTANCE

Months of development and testing were required to get these books just right, and we’d like to thank Yupo for their extensive support, as well as the great printers and ink technicians that pitched in to help.

The majority of our customers may not test the limits of these notebooks, but the map of Antarctica is neither hyperbole nor coincidence. We sent the Expedition edition to the South Pole with explorer Ben Saunders back in October 2013 as he and his team retraced Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated journey to the Pole and back, on foot and unsupported.

Note: Synthetic paper is nonporous and does not absorb ink like our conventional papers. Ballpoint pens, pencils, or fine tip Sharpies work best.