08 September 2011

Diary Inserts for 2012 - Part 2

Thank you for your comments on Part 1 of this series, I recommend reading Part 1 first before you read this part. 

In this part I will be turning now to brands available in Germany and Holland I'm very grateful to Jotje and Iris of Filomaniac for the details of these sites. I will also pick out a couple of other sites that have also been recommended.

BSB-Obpacher  is a German company and they have their 'Timeplaner' range. Looking at the whole range, it's interesting that some of the design themes and styles are similar. In common with other companies they use the designation of A6 to be the equivalent of Personal size and A7 to be Pocket size, although these sizes are not the same as the ISO paper sizes. 

This is their A5 Week on Two pages. This looks like it will fit a variety of binders due to the slotted paper holes.

This is their 'A6' Week on Two Pages, the paper size is very close to Filofax Personal size, in fact it's a couple of millimetres smaller.

You need to note that the days are only labelled in German (I think!?) The website is in German or English :-) be sure to check it out to see the whole range.

Chronoplan another German company, which appears to be part of the Avery Group of companies. They have diary inserts in the following sizes:
  • A4 - A4 Filofax with 4 holes
  • A5 - A5 Filofax with slotted holes which look like they will fit A5 Filofax
  • Midi - Personal Size Filofax
  • Mini - Pocket Size Filofax
Sadly the pictures of diary inserts are a little limited. But check out the website for full details.. only in German this time though.

Herlitz a long established company based in Berlin, like their other counterparts they use the following size designations:
  • A5 = Filofax A5 size
  • A6 = Filofax Personal size
  • A7 = Filofax Pocket size
  • A8 = Filofax Mini size
Here are a few examples of their refills:

Their A5 refill vertical week on two pages, it includes a small task area at the foot of weekdays.

Their A6 (Personal) week on two pages refill is very neat and it is comes in four languages.

They also do a horizontal A7 (Pocket) refill, which looks like it would work well compared to a traditional vertical format.

Check out their website for the full details of all of their range.

Time/System an international company, I looked at the UK website for the following information. They do organisers in the following sizes along with diary inserts:
  • Business = Filofax A5 
  • Compact = Filofax Personal, although the page size is 10 mm narrower than Filofax
  • Partner = Filofax Pocket, although the page size is 5 mm narrower and 10 mm taller than Filofax.
I was unable to view their range of inserts because they don't put the new range on sale until October.

I was also not able to verify the hole spacing of their inserts. However, check out their website if you are interested in seeing the range when it becomes available. Their catalogue will also be available in October. 

Succes are a Dutch company, but their website seems to adapt it self to your location automatically!

There sizes for organisers and refills are as follows:
  • Mini = Filofax Mini
  • Junior = Filofax Pocket
  • Standard = Filofax Personal
  • Executive A5 = Filofax A5
  • Business A4 = Filofax A4
They do diary refills in Day per Page and Week on Two pages, if you look at the website you can see the full range. 

Bind a German company, although the site has an English option too. They use similar sizing to other companies in Germany:
  • A4 = Filofax A4
  • A5 = Filofax A5
  • A6 = Filofax Personal
  • A7 = Filofax Pocket
Their calendar refills are 'tri-language' but it doesn't indicate which three... I'm guessing English German and may be French? See their website for full details.


Davinci from Japan, now you will need the help of Google Chrome for this one, unless you understand Japanese? But it is worth installing Chrome just to see the refills available on this site. They are excellent in terms of quality and their design.

They have A5, Bible (Personal) and Pocket sizes. You will find their refills here  You will notice that the refills are undated, so you can mix and match the formats depending on how busy your month/week/day is.

Of course you will have to factor in delivery costs and any import duties on any of these goods, but it might be worth it if you can get the format you have been looking for.


In the next part I will go on to cover some of the Filofax own brand options for diary inserts, signposting some of the unusual ones in different countries.

7 comments:

  1. Ha, forgot Brunnen and Idé (especially the latter make mice looking inserts).
    Additional info on your great post:
    T/S compact and partner have the holes off! Same for Succes mini: won't fit a mini.
    For the German inserts it's worthwhile to check ebay.de and Amazon.de, which are usually lese reluctant to Ship internationalally.
    For translations, visit the online dictionary www.linguee.de

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  2. Yes I realise there might be some missing. But in the chaos of last night I ran out of time.

    However, I fully intend to have a final part that will invite people to submit other alternatives that I am bound to have missed out.

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  3. Hi, Steve!

    Great job, but I was missing Tempus (tempus.de), Helfrecht (helfrecht.de) and Megatimer (megatimer.com) - the latter has great high-end products with phantastic quality! Actually Filofax had this quality once or should have it today.

    best,

    Bernhard

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  4. I must say a lot of these are much more visually appealing and show a more effective use of space than the Filofax brand ones. Now I understand why so many of you complain about the lack of variety and innovation of the FF inserts.

    Great job, Steve, thank you!

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  5. Great write-up!

    Regarding the Time/System, today I took a few minutes to see what information I could find on Time/System Business A5 hole spacing compared to Filofax A5. A Google search brought me to the wikipedia article on hole punches, which has hole spacing measurements for Filofax as well as others. I had been measuring the hole spacing on one of my Time/System pages with a metric ruler, and wasn't getting measurements that looked reasonable. After seeing the hole punch article, I put away the metric ruler and got out an inches ruler. Sure enough, two sets of three holes, with the holes in each set on 3/4" centers, and 2 3/4" between the center of the bottom hole of the upper group and the center of the top hole of the lower group. I'm still looking for a Filofax A5 Cuban or Finchley binder at the right price so that I can *empirically* confirm that Filofax A5 and Time/System A5 interchange ;)

    On the topic of hole spacing, for twenty years I've been storing my Time/System A5 pages in 3-ring binders. The standard U.S. 8 1/2" x 11" binders have rings 4 1/4" apart, which allows me to put my pages onto the rings without repunching. I typically stagger the pages upper and lower to separate by subject without needing dividers. Post-It notes extending to the side work better than dividers for labeling sections.

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  6. I can confirm that Time/system pages fit perfectly to my filofax Lyndhurst A5. It has been discussed earlier : http://philofaxy.blogspot.com/2010/07/will-normal-filofax-punch-work-for-a5.html

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  7. Does anyone know of a binder that will fit the Time/System compact inserts? I used to use the compact inserts but left T/S because they only offer 5/8" binder rings which were always too small for me.

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