Hi all and welcome back to Duck’s Doodles!

Today is one of my favorite days of the year- Field Notes Quarterly Edition review day, woohoo!

Field Notes recently released their latest quarterly edition- Autumn Trilogy.

Autumn is my favorite season- growing up in the northeast, there’s just something so special about going for a walk and seeing suburban streets lined in brilliant reds, yellows and oranges with the same beautifully colored leaves crunching under your feet.

A closeup of the Field Notes - Autumn Trilogy edition

Outside

The Field Notes site always outlines the processes they go through to design their editions; here is where you can see all the steps they take (including a video). The shortened version is that it went from 2D model, to 3D model, to diecast master, to hot resin copies to stamp multiple at a time. They then worked through some tests with various combos of papers, inks, tints and varnishes until the perfect balance was found.

The final result is a varnished coverstock in 3 very autumnal colors with 3 different leaf designs, bound together with gold colored staples. The orange notebook features a Sugar Maple leaf, the yellow has an American Elm leaf and the red has a Scarlet Oak leaf.

I enjoy the debossed leaves and embossed Field Notes logo on the front cover. The details that they were able to capture in the leaves are INSANE. The only problem is that these details are so subtle that you can really only notice these details in certain light (see pictures at the bottom of this section) or by running your hand over it. Additionally, the back cover has a small embossed tree with “Field Notes” at the bottom. It’s one of those nice Field Notes-y details.

I think when it comes to the colors, the Field Notes team really captured the extreme end of the spectrum for vibrant colors that can appear on trees, but I don’t think the photographs on their site (or even mine) do these colors justice. I was expecting these to be the more burnt orange and a deeper (I.e. less highlighter) yellow, but the red was exactly what I anticipated with the description of “Scarlet Red”. That’s not to say I’m disappointed in these colors, I really think these are the most autumn-y of autumn colors.

I’m particularly attached to the Scarlet Oak leaf, as it’s one of the symbols at my alma mater (go Scarlet Knights!), so that’ll probably be the first one I start using.

A close of up of the yellow American Elm

Inside

This edition features lined paper inside and the tops of each page have 2 thin stripes that match the color of the notebook (orange, yellow, red). The Field Notes site lists the paper used as “Finch Paper Fine Ultra Smooth 70#T Soft White”.

I enjoy dot grid notebooks, and I think they’re most popular because they allow for a more flexible setup. But because it’s so popular, I just have a million pocket notebooks with dot grids. I’m pretty happy that Field Notes chose to go with the lined insides to give my collection some variety.

As with all Field Notes, this edition features a section in the front cover for you to write when you started and ended the edition and a place for contact info as well as some general Field Notes info inside the back cover.

Writing

When it comes to writing this edition is no different than any other field notes edition. It isn’t fountain pen or marker friendly, but handles everything else (Retro 51s, Bics, Pilot G2s etc.) just fine.

Quarterly Extra- Bandana

This might be my favorite extra, but it’s mostly because my beagle Mollywobbles looks so CUTE in bandanas.

It has the pattern of the 3 leaves around the boarder, along with a Nathaniel Hawthorne quote.

Please enjoy a few pics of my long suffering pup enduring this bandana:

Verdict

I like this edition. Much like everything Field Notes does, it feels like no effort was spared to make this timely edition.

I get the sense that Field Notes knows they’ll crush it with Autumn themed notebooks (Mackinaw Autumn, anyone?), so this edition feels like a little bit of a “Best Of” moment.

Not to say that’s bad, Field Notes has been absolutely killing it with their last few editions, but they’ve been steadily getting more and more complex- from a whole Field Notes community treasure hunt to 9 different covers for different National Parks, there’s no shortage effort being put into these notebooks. Sometimes going back to elegant basics is a welcome change, and that’s what this edition feels like to me. This is Field Notes going back to what Field notes does best- celebrating simplicity.

I dig this edition, and it’s another one I’m glad to have in my collection.

This run is out of 35,000. If you’d like to purchase one you can start a yearly subscription or just buy this edition outright here

Note- I’m not affiliated or sponsored by any brands listed here and all items were purchased by me for review.