I know everyone has had their 2017 Life Planners for ages now, but I just got mine and since this is my first experience with Erin Condren, I thought I’d write about my reactions as a completely new customer.
I wrote about why I was buying an Erin Condren last month. Update: In that post, I mention that the name is also on the back–I later found out that this isn’t true; the preview image just shows it that way for some reason.
Anyway, my immediate reaction upon taking it out the box was that the cover is a lot higher quality than I expected. I was terrified of Erin Condren getting my ordered wrong, since I’ve seen a lot of people having issues. But even though the picture on the receipt showed a horizontal neutral layout, mine was the vertical neutral I requested. I didn’t notice any of the common problems–so far, I haven’t seen any wrong or missing pages, and since I didn’t get a coated coil, mine was fine.
The one thing I do wish is that I had gotten my name on it. The middle of the front cover doesn’t have the rose gold foil on it, so it looks a bit empty.
The back is all rose gold.
If this particular cover goes on a sale or something, I might get a second one with my name on it. You now have to pay extra if you personalize the cover when you buy it with the planner, which is annoying. That’s another reason why I didn’t put my name on it–the cost adds up fast when you starting selecting options. But we’ll see how I feel about it as time goes on.
One thing I’ve never been able to understand from watching Erin Condren videos and so on is just how big they are. I knew the pages could fit in a Filofax A5, but somehow they always seemed like the size of a regular notebook to me. Here’s a comparison with my Charleston A5.
Overall, I’d say I’m pleased with the quality. The vellum and cover feel more luxurious than I was expecting. I see the issues that people have mentioned with the image quality on some of the pages, but it doesn’t really bother me. I am very glad that Erin Condren has come up with a layout that isn’t as colorful–I didn’t like the bright circus colors they used to use, and I dislike the more muted palette they’ve been using even more. Now I just have to keep the habit of planning every day.
