As you may know, Mark+Fold was born out of a project all about paper. The '100 White Papers Project' was our audit of all the white-ish, 100gsm-ish papers we could find. And this narrowed down to 10 papers, which we tested with friends and colleagues — from illustrators and designers working in gouache and pencil, to writers with very specific preferences in terms of fountain pens.
Since 2015 we have used just two papers for the pages of our notebooks and diaries - one made at Stoneywood Mill in Aberdeenshire, the other initially made in Scotland on the banks of the River Leven and later in the Lake District, but all UK-made. Both chosen as the best from our '100 White Papers' research.
Over the past year, a lot has changed. Due to Brexit and reduced production levels, and resulting increases in paper prices etc, both of these wonderful papers have gone out of production. In the case of the Stoneywood Mill, this historic mill has closed its doors altogether, which is a huge shame for an area that had been making paper for centuries — and some of the best papers in the world too, including the well-known Conqueror.
So this summer we had to put our research hats back on. Thankfully, there are still a great number of white papers in production. The small compromise we have had to make is that our new paper choice is not made in the UK. However it is made at an historic mill in Sweden, renowned for its environmental practices, as well as the beautiful quality of its papers. We've known and loved this paper for a long time, and used it on some bespoke commissions in the past. So it was little surprise that in our blind testing, this one came out the best.
Needless to say, we've been as thorough in testing this new paper as we've always been. In some ways, 8 years in, it was time to repeat this process just to make sure we are still using the very best paper we can. Mark+Fold was started because of a frustration with poor quality papers, so on this we will never compromise.
We hope you'll love using it, and that together we can continue to support European paper mills working in innovative and sustainable ways.
Amy
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Amy Cooper-Wright
Mark+Fold Founder
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