Words on the Goods

Baron Fig has a cool new product—product line, really—called Mastermind. They were kind enough to send Words on the Goods samples of the Mastermind Desk Pad and the Mastermind Week Pad for review.

Both the Desk Pad and the Week Pad have the classic, old-school feel of something you would go out and buy at Staples, only they look way cooler.

The Desk Pad is a large (12” by 8”) tear-off pad for taking down messages, phone numbers, making task lists, and recording any other miscellany that come up through the day. Baron Fig calls it “the braincenter of your desk.”

There’s quite a bit of room for writing, as you can see.

The paper is Baron Fig’s lovely, 100 gsm dot grid paper.

(Kaweco fountain pen and leaf not included.)

As far as bleed-through, the pad does pretty well. You could, in theory, use both sides of a page before discarding—the show-through is minimal enough. (The back sides are blank.)

The Desk Pad is sold in twos, with each pad having 35 sheets. You can find it here.

The Week Pad is much smaller and can be used to group notes, tasks, or even appointments by day. It takes up far less space on your desk, and easily sits right next to your keyboard.

The Week Pad’s paper quality is just as good as the Desk Pad. It’s clearly intended for those whose work week is Monday-Friday. The slot for the weekend is quite small and is labeled “Sat/Sun,” which doesn’t give me enough room for the weekend work I do. One good use case for me, though, has been to write down my “Top 3 Must-Do” tasks for each day on the Week Pad, and then keep it at my desk in full sight. That serves as a good reminder of my priorities.

The Week Pad is 11” by 3” and includes 18 sheets. Each order gets you three packs. You can find it here.

Thanks to Baron Fig for sending the Desk Pad and Week Pad so I could review them! This did not influence the objectivity of my review.