Pencil cases come in a huge selection of shapes and sizes. Some are made to hold your top three pens, while others can carry all the office supplies you own. Depending on who you are and what you need, your requirements for capacity, material, and style will vary. Students might prefer a durable nylon case that's easy to clean, with a main compartment big enough for a calculator. Artists, on the other hand, need a high-capacity case that displays instruments clearly, so that they can work quickly and precisely.

Many of the pencil cases shown here have a multitude of different pockets and slots for you to play with. These compartments make it easier to find what you're looking for, and prevent your items from knocking around and being damaged. This might not seem important when you've got a pack of Sharpies with you, but when it comes to freshly sharpened wooden pencils, razor thin pencil leads, or expensive fountain pens, you'll be glad to hear absolutely no clunking sounds from your pencil case.

When you keep a pocket notebook, surprising things happen. The transient ideas that bubble up, surfacing from time to time in your subconscious, suddenly have a place to go. Appointments, conversations, diagrams, passwords, and poems form a small riot within its pages.

Still, the photos of meticulously organized Moleskines on Instagram can be intimidating. It’s easy to get the feeling that pocket notebooks must be aesthetically pleasing, or that every page should be polished and perfect. In reality, pocket notebooks are just accessible, reliable, and predictable receptacles for information of every kind. Write down all of your half-baked thoughts, nonsensical ideas, and mundane observations... and somewhere in there, you should be able to find a small and quiet sliver of genius.

In this article, we’ll cover the advantages of using a pocket notebook, highlight a few stand-out notebooks from our Pocket Notebook Selection Guide, and start you out with a few ideas on what to write.

Using a fountain pen can be a wonderful experience. Fountain pens naturally require little to no pressure to write with, and can literally glide across pages of the right paper. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as fountain-pen-compatible paper.

Among the many notebooks and journals available at JetPens, I’ve listed a few of my personal favorites that perform beautifully with fountain pen ink.

Note: You can click on all photos to view a larger, more detailed shot.

Maruman Mnemosyne Notebooks

My everyday go-to notebooks are found in the Maruman Mnemosyne line (named after the Greek goddess for memory). Available in a wide variety of versatile sizes and formats, the Maruman Mnemosyne notebooks contain a thick, creamy paper that has a smooth surface. Blank, lined, and graph pages are offered, and this paper provides a wonderful writing experience for fountain pens, as well as other pen types.

Choosing a brush pen is hard. Not only are there a wide range of options in tip firmness and tip material, each pen is going to react differently depending on the user. Do you have a soft or heavy hand? Are your strokes tiny or broad? How do you know which brush pen is best for your style?

One thing we do at JetPens is provide an area for customer reviews. This helps you get as much individual information on a product as possible, which in turn helps you make a more informed purchasing decision.

The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen for Calligraphy is one of our highest rated and most reviewed brush pens with 27 reviews and a 4.9 out of 5 rating. If you are in the market for a brush pen but do not know where to start, reading the customer reviews of the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen will give you great insight.

One of the recurring themes in the reviews is that this pen has a great traditional brush pen feel. If you are looking for a firm, felt tip brush, then this is not the pen for you. But, if you are looking for an expressive, flexible, and consistent pen then you do not need to look any further than the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

The best part about this great brush pen? It is refillable. Customers often fall in love with the specific feel of their pen, and having a refill option is icing on the cake.

What more could you ask for in a JetPens Classic?

This is the first fountain pen I ever owned.

I bet I'm not the only one who can say that. The Platinum Preppy Fountain Pen has served beginning fountain pen users well over the years and remains wildly popular to this day. So, what is it about the Preppy that makes it so popular?

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: the price. At $3.30 there is no reason to not try one out, even if you have never used a fountain pen in your life. The worst thing that will happen is you don't like it and you are out the cost of a tall non-fat white chocolate mocha, no whip at your favorite caffeine vendor.

But what most people discover - myself included - is that the Preppy provides great value. Choose from two different nib sizes and seven different ink colors to make your first step towards fountain pen ownership. Once the pen arrives, snap in the ink cartridge and start writing. It's as easy as that!

Even experienced fountain pen users love the Preppy for its flexibility. Not many people want to take their expensive fountain pens out of the house, but with a little silicon grease you can convert the Preppy into an eye dropper and take your favorite ink with you anywhere.

If you have always wanted to try a fountain pen but were nervous about the choices, the Platinum Preppy is the clear number one choice to get you started. The value, quality, performance, and flexibility make it a true JetPens Classic.