Spring News

Filofax recently announced a new model range called 'The Camden' collection. 

The rings are fixed to a card that slides in to a pocket on the back cover. Therefore you can remove them and use the cover for a bound notebook/journal. Sadly they don't sell these rings separately yet. 

I love the way this has been described as 'Gender Neutral' what I would have once called 'Uni-sex' but that's just me showing my age! They also describe it as 'Vegan Leather' and this is reflected in the price. 

In a past life if someone mentioned the Camden to me, it was a pub in Pembury near Tunbridge Wells!

In other news, Gillio have announced another event later this year. 

Van der Spek have announced their 'Leather of the Month' for April.

Today's post will be later than normal.

Because of a press embargo, today's post is later than normal. 

Watch this space.....

News from Filofax

At PlannerCon Europe in Brussels last weekend, we were fortunate to have a talk by Julia from FLB Group to give us some indications about future products. We should start to see these in the next year or so.

Coming soon is the Original model in Pocket size. Since its introduction in 2013 it has only been available in Personal and A5 size. I'm sure this additional size will be well received.

Other existing models haven't been forgotten about. The Holborn will be coming out in a new colour a dark purple. 

The Malden continues to be popular and it will be coming out in 'Iris' a pleasant purple colour.

There is a new Coral colour for the ever popular Finsbury range too.

With Filofax being established in 1921, they are starting to plan to celebrate their 100th anniversary. As part of this 'celebration' they have recreated the boxes that items were sold in back then. 

The Classic Cross will be returning, but in a slightly textured leather, but with the same stitching detail on the cover. The samples on the stand were presented in soft pastel colours. 

At PlannerCon in 2017 we were shown the 'Chester Collection' of leather organisers and other products. This was going to be exclusively available in the Japanese market only.

However this collection will be available later this year in the rest of the world, it includes organisers, folios, and travel wallets. No detail on prices but these looked very desirable organisers to own. 

The Clipbook range will be expanding with an A4 model, it will have the standard 4 ring spacing mechanism as existing A4 Filofax organisers (80 - 80 - 80mm spacing) 

A Clipbook Zip model in A4 and A5 will also be released. Even though this is a zip model it will still be able to be folded back on itself. 

The Filofax Notebooks were also featured in the talk, unlike normal bound notebooks the Filofax ones (originally based on the Miracle Bind system) allow you to insert and move pages around. The spacing is the same across the range of different size notebooks meaning that you can move pages between them. 

Letts of London has been existence for nearly 225 years and the company is credited with creating the very first diaries. The product range has recently been updated and brought up to date with modern cover colours, but retaining excellent quality paper. Our goodie bags included some samples too. 

Filofax have been taking part in PlannerCon in San Francisco earlier this year as well as events in Japan. 

Look out for announcements on all these new products in the coming months.

[STOP PRESS] Some of the new arrivals have started to appear on the Filofax UK site. 

Mid Year Update

I thought I would give you a quick up date and a few requests too.

Karine and I have just finished a five part series on the Podcast. There will now be a gap of about 4 weeks as we are both going to be on holiday or otherwise busy, our holidays overlap hence the long gap.

That said it might be possible to do some guest interviews, would you like to be on the podcast? There's no formal qualifications required, I can give you some technical guidance on how to get your computer set up to be able to record your side of the conversation.

There's no formal script to follow we record the whole show in just over 30 minutes, nothing ever gets chopped out! The odd distracting noise might be removed but that is all. Therefore it normally doesn't take more than about an hour to do a recording.

If you would like to join in please contact me steve at philofaxy dot com and we will see what we can do.

Also if you have any ideas for future topics or for Karine and I to revisit previous topics comment below or contact at the address above.

As always I am also keen to welcome contributions from any of you for guest posts, readers under the spotlight (even if you have appeared before a while ago) etc.

Have a good week and again thank you for all your support.

Industry News: William Hannah - New releases

David Round of William Hannah England recently announced the following new products for his A5 and A6 range of disc-bound leather notebook/planners:

1. A6 Archive Set

2. A5 100 Day Pack (ONE-Day-to-a-Page)

3. A6 2018 Month-to-2-Page Diary

4. A5 2018 Month-to-2-page Diary

5. A5 2018 Month-to-2-page Intention Diary

6. A5 24-Hour Time Tracker Wheel

7. A6 24-Hour Time Tracker Wheel

8. A5 2018/2019 Back Page Calendar

All of these are now available on the web site to purchase, you will find them on the Accessories/Refills page. 

Further Information.

Web Site: https://www.williamhannah.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamHannahUK/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WilliamHannahUsers/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamhannahuk/

UK Government bulk buying Filofax Organisers

To some of you it might come as a surprise that David Cameron's government are bulk buying Filofax organisers to issue to Whitehall civil servants.

However, in these times of austerity measures and economic downturn the Chancellor George Osborne turned down Whitehall mandarin's requests to equip civil servants with iPads and other fancy tablets.

Philofaxy in conjunction with Filofax UK met last week to decide on what models would suit which Civil Service grades. Steve an former long serving UK Civil Servant himself was well placed to assist Filofax UK to decide on Filofax organiser recommendations to be put forward to the Treasury Office supporting this return to pen and paper initiative.

I suspect by the time you read this post the lorry load of Apex's will be delivered to Whitehall....

Philofaxy News Up Date

Hi Everyone.

Just a couple of updates to tell you about.

The details of the London Meet Up will be posted on here on Thursday 15th March, it contains all the details of the meet up and more importantly how to apply for a place on the meet up. You cannot apply until the 16th March so don't panic. Please read the full post before applying for a place.

My second bit of news is about the comments. The transition over to threaded comments seems to have worked well. Although there have been a few reports of problems trying to leave comments, either the log in side of it. Or that people hate the two word verification.

I've not managed to pin down what the log in problem is it could be a general Google issue, or it could be an issue with a bit of software on your own PC. Once you are logged in you enter a secure (HTTPS) session this could be the problem, but I'm not sure.

The two word verification is a bit of a bind I realise, but click on the circular recycle arrow until you get two words you can make out easily!! I have to do this quite often now.  Sadly Google haven't given us the option of going back to the old single word option. It's either two word or none... and I would hate to think how much SPAM we would get without the verification on the site.

The next US Mid-West meet up is gathering a lot of interest, please see the earlier post if you are in that region or you are able to travel to that region for a meet up.

Steve

Filofax 2012 release dates

Here are the projected release dates of the new ranges/new colours see earlier posts for details.

• Petal - March
• Jack Vintage - April
• Domino - March
• Domino Mix - July
• Apex - March if anyone cares!
• Metropol - March
• Swift - March
• Pennybridge - June
• BCC - April
• Finsbury - March 
• Holborn - March
• Malden - March
• Filofax Classic - June
• Luxe - June
• Osterley - June

There might be other new products to be announced later in the year, no details as yet.

A5 Compacts....

Another frequent request seen on Philofaxy... a slimmer A5. I know we have all seen and commented about the Adelphi not quite being what we had in mind. Whilst it had the smaller rings it lost it with the additional bulk of the binder itself.

So in order to counteract these comments... we will be seeing compact A5's this year... they will all come with 20 mm rings and they are:

• Regency
• Luxe
• Boston
• Pennybridge Zip

I'm not sure if all of these will officially arrive on the UK website, but that doesn't normally stop keen buyers from finding what they want else where!

Availability from about June 2012 onwards possibly before.

The New Range... my own point of view..

OK so far I've reported on the new range, but I've not really commented on it from my own point of view...

New binders... good to see some brighter colours for those of you that are considering a new or replacement organiser this year. I'm happy for you lovers of purple that the Malden will also be available in this colour... I thought last years range was quite dull in terms of colour choices if you don't include the Apex...shhhhh

I'm might be tempted by the Malden Compact Zip... but that is about it for me out of the new ones.

However, inserts... this is the major issue for me... packaging like others have said doesn't bother me.. but reducing the range of inserts does concern me.

As yet we don't know what is going to stay and what is going to disappear.

Of course Filofax is a commercial company and they have to make a profit otherwise they can't pay the bills and they will sink without trace. 

People have said and continue to say that the quality of Filofax inserts isn't as good as other companies inserts and Philofaxy have supplied you with plenty of information on what fits and what doesn't, or how to make it fit your Filofax.

If however they continue with the same range with the same quality then of course sales of these items will drop off as we drift off to other solutions... so it's a catch 22 situation in a way.

So if the new designs don't improve the paper quality and designs don't please, then I'm not sure what they will do.

If they really are going to discontinue the TM Week per View insert then that is a blow, I'm using it this year and I know at least three other readers that are as well. For me this layout in A5 isn't quite perfect, but it's not far off it.

So if it is not going to be available next year then 'we' have to do something about it. To that end I've started a discussion with Ray over at My Life All In One Place.

Ray has produced some excellent templates for Day Per Page and other calendars, and I'm sure the techniques he has used are adaptable to Week Per View or Week on a Page plus notes/tasks etc. If it is possible to create such a template file I'm tempted to do one that looks similar to the FF TM Week Per View format, and one which I will adapt for my own preference, but of course you would also be able to adapt the design to your liking too.

Now that's a lot of 'ifs' but I'm sure we can come up with something to replace this particular insert design and any others that disappear. These will of course be made available for you to download and print yourself. I can't see me going in to 'production' to print these off on a for sale basis!

As I've said in earlier posts you will be kept informed with any developments either from Filofax or with our own development of substitutes.

[Update] A comment thread has been started on the Filofax Facebook Page to ask them to continue the TM inserts: http://www.facebook.com/filofax/posts/10150573385353357?notif_t=feed_comment

Filofax 2012 New Range - Part Three

So to finish off our round up of the new range for 2012 and to answer some of your questions from Parts 1 and 2.

There will be a revamp of insert packaging in 2012 and overhaul of insert design and range in 2013, and by this they mean a bit more bolder and colourful in the design, although I've not seen any examples yet... may be they should employ us on a consultancy basis!! I also hear that they are cutting the range of inserts which is bad news in some ways but we don't have any specifics about what is going to disappear.

There are some iPhone cases coming in with a Malden one on show at Paperworld this week. Pity I don't have an iPhone... may be if I buy the case that will be a good enough excuse!  They are also developing a range of iPad cases as well although several of the prototypes disappeared from the stand!

The Luxe is going to be available in UK in Mini, Pocket, Compact and A5, no mention of Personal size which I thought was a little odd... prices ranging from £85 for the Mini to £150 for the A5 my contacts tell me that one of the unique thing about this model is that the ring mechanism is covered in leather, just the rings themselves stick out.  It's available only in Blackcurrent...

There are some changes in colours of the Metropol range and the addition of the Compact size. This one is shown in Kingfisher Blue.

Later this year there will be some new Flex covers including some leather ones in Malden and Luxe type finishes in black and pink

Malden Zips in Ochre & Purple in Pocket and Personal Compact. Interiors much like the normal binders, but both have a full length gusseted pocket. Availability of this model appears to be an Europe only model, but I guess Neal Street will have it. I'm also assured that City Organiser will be able to get it as well.

Boston in very soft napp-like leather in black and pink with metal Filofax logo on bottom right hand corner.

With regards availability of the new models, (existing ones carry one obviously) in UK they will be phased in starting in March through to about July. Malden is pencilled in for a March launch..

As always if I get any more 'news' I will let you know.

Filofax 2012 New Range - Part Two

Following on from part one. Here are the rest of the significant new additions to the range.

The next new addition is the Pennybridge, now this has been available in other markets before (Germany, Denmark etc) It comes in Pocket, Compact and A5 all are zipped in 'leather look' in black and purple. They range in prices of £29, £35 and £49. The A5 comes with an iPad pocket...

The Breast Cancer Campaign organiser, still in pink is now also available in Personal size as well as pocket.

Moving on to the Finsbury, as usual they have phased out colours and added new ones. This year we gain Blue and Yellow. The Finsbury will also be available in Compact size as well as Mini, Pocket, Personal, A5, A4 although the colour availability varies a little depending on the size of the Finsbury.

The Holborn will no longer be available in Zip format, but will be available in Compact format...and in Wine colour.

The Filofax Classic will be available in two new colours Sage and Lilac in Pocket and Compact sizes

The Osterley becomes available in Orange, bright and different!

And finally... the Purple Malden...

That's it for today... I will try and pick up on some of the other changes later. Once again thanks to Nina for her detailed report from Paperworld 2012

Filofax 2012 New Range - Part One

Special agent Nina has been at Frankfurt today going around Paperworld 2012. You can read her full report on her blog... but I thought I would share with you some pictures from her 'concealed camera'

So first up is the 'Petal' it will be in Pocket size only and will retail for about £15.

And those of you who will recall the discussions and posts we had about a Union Jack Filofax a few months ago, will be forgiven when you suggest that the idea has been taken and used by Filofax when you see this one... the 'Jack Vintage'.

It will be available in Pocket and Personal size for £17-20.


This next one is the Domino Mix again in Pocket and Personal sizes only it has textured exterior surface. It will sell for between £21 and 24.

The Swift is the replacement for the Songbird, and it is fabric covered and comes in Pocket and Personal sizes with a price of between £28 and £34

That's the news for today... more coming up tomorrow hopefully....

Musing for a Wednesday....

To say I'm short of ideas today would be a little bit of an understatement... ok let me get the excuses out of the way. I've been busy with a few non-Philofaxy projects, some of them payment type projects some pro-bono ones, as usual, more of the later than the former... but that's life!

In terms of Filofax news we are in a little bit of a lull awaiting announcements which will start to appear in the public domain from about the end of the month and then hopefully through February. Filofax are at a trade show in Frankfurt next week, so most of their 2012 range will be on display there I would think.

You will have seen the 'Temperley Teaser' which I've seen reported else where as being priced £379 and £399, there are two sizes and two designs we do know that... and the 'inflated' price is mainly because it's a 'limited edition'

But it got me chuckling when I saw our popular posts list in the side bar. There was my post from last week on Filofax News, sat next to the other post about dividers...  You won't be seeing old chocolate box dividers in your Temperley Special Filofax now will you!!! How much am I bid for these colourful chocolate boxes...

I don't wish to comment until I have seen an actual example of these organisers before I make a firm comment on 'are they worth it' However, I've received some 'material samples' for both of the models, and I think they will be quite stylish, but I'm not sure how robust in everyday use they will be. Time will tell.

I would also like to publicly thank you for being such good sports about the part 1 to last weeks News story, I was in stitches of laughter when I saw some of the comments and the barbs throw at me at the time for leaving you all hanging at the end of 'story'. I had given my brief outline to my dear wife Alison to enhance it a bit and suddenly the idea came in to my head of not saying anything about the news! Yes it was cruel... but funny when you think back... and yes I know I won't be able to pull that stunt for a while!

The other thing I'm trying to sort out at the moment is a date for the next meet up in London, this is just a case of finding time in my schedule sometime in the Spring. So look out for announcements soon I hope.

As usual any Guest Posts are welcome... please send them in to philofaxy at gmail dot com  Our popular series of posts of Readers Under The Spotlight is also open for new interviewees, email us if you would like to go under the spotlight.

Filofax 2012 - News

I have been asked a few times when the new ranges/colours will be revealed by Filofax.

I have some news... it will not for a while... The next catalogue isn't schedule for release until April 2012 with the new models/colours going on sale in July or September 2012.

So a little different to previous years in recent history. But the cover of the current catalogue (right) does say 2011/12 in the bottom right hand corner.

And before you ask... no I don't know what new colours or models we are likely to see in the new catalogue, but you can be sure as soon as we know we will be telling you...

Watch this space!

Friday News Update

Hi Everyone...

Just a quick news update on a few things that have popped up in the last day or two.

• Staples have got some excellent in-store deals on the A5 Aqua Finsbury at half price, and a few other models at half price too... Check your local Staples for details as these aren't showing up on-line. You can find your nearest store here
  
  
• We have at least one place available on the Philofaxy November Meet Up on Saturday 19th, if you would like to attend please contact philofaxy at gmail dot com as soon as possible, it's only two weeks away....
  
  
• Neal Street have just taken delivery of a batch of Guildford Zips & Extra Slim organisers.
  
  
• And finally, you will see our Cancer Charity Donation has leaped up in the last 24 hours. Thank you all for your continued support. What do you think of me doing a poll later this month as to which of the cancer charities we should donate to at the end of December? Several have been suggested so far, I can find them again in the email archive and list them fairly easily.

Thank you and have a great weekend.

News Update - 1 September 2011

Hello Everyone..
So 1st September... I thought I would update you on a few changes on the blog... nothing major, but worth mentioning.

Firstly, you might have noticed that the layout/presentation of the blog has changed or rather evolved. I don't like making drastic changes, so I just made a few tweaks to the template. Possibly the most noticeable is the change in font to a sans-serif one, I think it makes it clearer / easier to read. I hope you like it.

Secondly, I've introduced a change on the Ad-spot page. Up to now advertising has been free, no commission has been taken, and we have 'sold' quite a few items via the page in the last 6 months or so.

I'm not introducing charges as such, but I am requesting that you make a donation to a charity run by Amanda one of our readers.  I would however stress that I am not going to check that you have made a donation before your advert is placed on the page, this will be an 'honesty' system, a bit like the donation plate for visitors at the entrance to churches. I will let you decide the size of your donation... but as the saying goes... every little helps.

Our other push for charity, the Cancer Charity donation continues to steadily grow (£45+ at the time of writing). Again thank you all for your continued support. No news yet from WH Smiths on us joining their scheme, I will email their co-ordinator to find out what is going on.

You might have noticed that the latest Web Finds was slightly shorter than it has been in recent weeks. I use Google Blog search to ferret out posts, and of late it's performance seems to be getting worse, I'm not sure what Google are doing, but their own Google Alerts system can take days to inform me of Filofax posts that I know are on the net already.  So a request... if you have posted a blog post and I've missed it, please drop me a quick email and I will make sure it goes in to the next 'Web Finds'

Finally, thank you everyone for your support for the Philofaxy All Stars Tour, it's going quite steadily. Thanks also to Angela for the 'badges' she produced. Since these have started to appear on sites, I have noticed a slight increase in traffic back to Philofaxy, and people coming in from these other blogs do tend to read higher than the average number of posts each visit.  I hope people are going back in the opposite direction too.

Thanks everyone.


Steve

News Update - August 2011

Just a quick news update today. The weather is back to being hot and sunny here, as we would normally expect in August, so I've been outside most of today.

Filofax UK have set another challenge for Fashion Photography bloggers on Facebook. You will be able to see the submissions on their Facebook page, it will be interesting to see what sort of pictures they submit... might learn something myself even!

I would also take this moment to thank one of our readers Gerard who has been slaving away recreating Filofax templates for our Files page.  Here is a full list of them:

Personal Pages using Pre-punched A4 Filofax Computer Paper (all in pdf format)

• Activity Plan 2011-2013
• Activity Plan 12 month
• Activity Plan 1 month
• Angler's Catch Record
• Annual Leave Record
• Annual Overview
• Bibliofile
• Birthdays + Anniversaries
• Book Review
• Book Review + Notes
• Budget Planner
• Cellar Notes
• Daily Work Planner
• Delegation Brief
• Dilemmas + Notes
• Flexible Time Log
• Hotel
• Memo
• Month Planner
• Monthly Time Planner
• Photo Exposure Record
• Photographers Record
• Project Planner
• Reading List
• Restaurant
• Shopping List
• Tasting Notes
• Timetable
• To Be List
• Travellers Checklist
• Travel Information
• Weekly Time Planner 

As new files are added they will appear on the files page, with a brief update in the side bar as to what is new. Once again thank you Gerard.

Also new on the files page are some Personal Size Weight Watchers pages sent to us by Natalie, thank you also:

• Weight Watchers 1 - .doc
• Weight Watchers 2 - .doc
• Weight Watchers Notes - .doc 

Hope you are enjoying some sunshine, where ever you are. 

Filofax News Update

Monday seems to be website change and news announcement day at Filofax around the world..

Today the Flex range went live on the Filofax USA site. And seems to have captured the hearts of quite a few people on Twitter including Gala Darling...

Also Filofax Sweden has launched their on-line catalogue, which apart from things we have already seen, it does feature some new models (Dakota, Pennybridge and Journey) and possibly some colours, we haven't seen to date... so at the risk of some serious enabling.... you should go and have a little peek at their catalogue. 

I've made some enquiries as to when the UK catalogue will be in on-line.

Also don't forget this is the last week for votes in the Filofax Style Off competition on Facebook, please vote if you haven't already.

Enjoy....

News Update

Hi Everyone.
Firstly thank you to everyone who joined in on the Round Table Chat yesterday both the text people and the voice chat people. It was great fun and no doubt there will be a post or two from different quarters about what happened in the chat... and afterwards!!

Some other brief news for you...

1. The Osterley is now available in Neal Street, this is one of the new range of organisers that Filofax have released this year. I don't have any other details about colours and sizes, best contact the helpful staff at Neal Street if you are interested.

T: +44 (0) 207 836 1977
E: dyau@filofax.co.uk
Filofax Shop 68 Neal Street Covent Garden London England WC2H 9PF

2. Spotted by Jotje this morning the Chameleon in Compact size on the French site.  Think personal size but only 15 mm rings... or a Slimline with bigger rings and a closure tab. This is another model variation that isn't shown in the UK paper catalogue.

3. News from NYC via Andrew: Borders at Madison Square Garden/Penn Station in NYC is having a closeout sale on binders. 50% off. Saw a couple dozen, lots of pink ones. But some variety still. Many have 2010 inserts. A bit hard to find them , as they're on a low shelf in the back of the store.

Have a good week.