Photo Diary or a Plain Journal?

This question has two different answers, and one fact decides which applies: does the person already keep a journal?

For someone who does, a notebook is a tool. They have chosen it carefully, probably more than once, and they have views about it that no gift-giver can guess. For someone who does not, a notebook is a promise — and a photo diary is a notebook that has already been started for them.

What each one is

A photo diary, as we make it, opens with your photographs, designed and printed with captions, followed by lined pages to write in. It lies flat when open and has a ribbon marker. A plain journal is every page blank or ruled, in whatever brand, paper and size the buyer picks.

If they already journal

Someone who writes most days has usually settled everything a notebook involves. The brand, because they have tried five. The paper, because their pen bleeds through some and not others. The ruling — dotted grids are almost a movement of their own. The size, because it has to fit the bag they carry.

A gifted journal that gets any of those wrong is used for shopping lists. And there is a subtler problem: many habitual journallers keep a shelf of the same notebook, numbered, one per few months. A beautiful different one does not continue the series. It interrupts it.

So for this person, do not replace the notebook. Add to what goes in it. Journallers paste things into their pages all the time — tickets, receipts, pressed flowers, photographs. Give them the photographs in a form they can use: small prints that fit a notebook page. Our polaroid-style prints come at 2x3 and 3x3 inches, which sit comfortably on an A5 page with room for writing beside them. Thirty are ₹270. They are thick card with no adhesive, so a few to a notebook, fixed with glue or washi tape. Polaroid print sizes compared →

The other good option is almost too simple: buy the exact notebook they already use — the next one in their series — and tuck the prints inside the front cover. It is a refill of their habit with something of yours inside it.

If they write now and then

The trip diary, the New Year resolution, a few pages after something big happens and then nothing until the next big thing. This is the person a plain notebook fails most reliably: it gets three entries in January, and then it is a notebook with three entries in it.

The photo diary suits them better, for a practical reason. The printed front section gives the object a life before any writing happens. It gets picked up to be looked at and shown to people, and every time it is picked up, the pages after the photographs are right there. A blank notebook has nothing to be picked up for.

Size it honestly. Sixty sheets, 120 pages, is right for almost everyone in this group; the larger sizes are for people who already fill notebooks. Photo diary sizes and page counts →

If they never write

Then neither. A diary of any kind for someone who does not write is pages they will feel guilty about, and the photographs you chose deserve better than being the front half of that.

Give a photo magazine instead. Same photographs, no blank pages, nothing expected of them. Photo diary vs photo book →

For a stretch of time with a start and an end

A pregnancy, a first year of marriage, a year abroad, a long course. Here the photo diary is at its strongest, for a reason a plain notebook cannot match: the printed section is the before, and the blank pages are the stretch itself. The object has a shape that fits the period exactly. A diary for a pregnancy → · A diary for a first year of marriage →

What a plain journal does better

Worth being straight about, because it wins more often than a keepsake seller would like to say.

• Paper matched to their pen. A fountain-pen user knows exactly which papers take ink without feathering. We cannot promise ours suits every pen.
• Their preferred ruling and size. Our diary is lined. If they live in a dotted grid, it is the wrong tool however good the photographs are.
• Replaceability. When it is full, they buy another identical one. A photo diary is a one-off.
• Privacy. A plain notebook announces nothing to anyone who picks it up. More on that below.

What a photo diary does better

• It is not blank. The hardest part of any journal is starting it, and this one arrives already started.
• It is unmistakably a gift. A good notebook, however carefully chosen, can look like stationery someone bought on the way over.
• It holds the photographs and the writing together, so over the months the handwriting becomes part of the keepsake rather than a separate object.
• It lies flat. Ours do, which is what makes them writable to the last page. Not every notebook does.

The privacy question

Think about what a journal is for. People write in a journal what they do not say out loud — including, sometimes, about the person who gave it to them.

A diary that opens with photographs of the two of you is a strange place to write about a bad week in the relationship, and some people simply will not. For a partner, that can be a reason to give the photographs as prints and the notebook plain, so that the journal stays entirely theirs.

The sharpest version is a teenager. A diary from a parent, opening with family photographs, is the one diary a teenager will assume the parent can read — so it gets used for school notes, or not at all. If a fourteen-year-old should have somewhere private to write, give them a plain notebook they choose themselves, and make the family photographs a separate gift that asks nothing of them. Personalised gifts for a teenager →

If you do give the photo diary

Two small things decide whether it gets written in. Start it, but keep it short — about two hundred words at the very front, before the photographs, where it reads as a dedication and becomes the first entry. And give it at the start of something — a year, a move, a trip — so their first entry has an obvious subject. What to write in a photo diary →

Frequently asked

Is a photo diary a good gift for someone who already journals? Usually not as a replacement for their notebook. Give prints small enough to paste into it, or the next notebook in their series with the prints tucked inside.

Is a photo diary good for bullet journaling? Not usually. It is lined, and most bullet journallers work on a dotted grid. Prints to paste into their own notebook suit them better.

Will someone write private thoughts in a diary full of our photographs? Some will not. For a partner especially, keeping the photographs separate lets the journal stay private.

Can the prints be stuck into any notebook? Yes, with glue or washi tape — they have no adhesive backing. The 2x3 and 3x3 inch sizes leave room to write beside them on an A5 page.

What if they only write when they travel? A photo diary, sixty sheets, given before the trip, with photographs of home — or of the last trip — at the front. A diary for a travel year →

Before you buy either

• No writing habit at all? Neither. A magazine.
• A notebook they always buy? That one, with the prints inside the cover.
• A year, a trip or a pregnancy about to start? A photo diary, sixty sheets.
• A partner who journals privately? A plain notebook, and the photographs as prints.
• Not sure of their ruling or their pen? Do not guess the notebook — give the prints.

Part of our printed vs digital comparison guide. See also: who a photo diary suits.

Pages to fill, or prints to paste: Photo Diary from ₹699 · Personalised photo diaries · Polaroid Pack from ₹270