Every July, Leuchtturm1917 quietly releases its 18-month planner range, and every July a handful of regulars come into the shop and ask us the same question: "Which one should I get?" The two A5 hardcover planners look identical from the outside — same dimensions, same colours, same £26.90 price — but they're built around two very different ideas of what a planner is for.
If you've ever stood in front of the Leuchtturm shelf wondering which side to come down on, this is the post for you. By the end of it you'll know whether you're a Weekly Planner & Notebook person or a Weekly Planner person, and which of the four 2027 colours suits your shelf.
What 18 months actually means
Both Leuchtturm 2027 planners cover July 2026 to December 2027 — eighteen months rather than the standard twelve. The format exists because the calendar year and the academic year don't line up, and because most people want a planner that's ready to use when they finally get around to buying it. Starting in July means the planner is alive for the entire autumn term, the full following calendar year, and the start of the next academic year. Three useful seasons rather than one.
It also means you don't have to wait until January, watching the unused half of last year's diary slowly stop being relevant. Buy one in August, and it works straight away.
The two models, side by side
The difference is in the page layout, and it matters more than you'd think.
Weekly Planner & Notebook — for the writers
Each spread of the Weekly Planner & Notebook gives you one page laid out as a week (seven horizontal day rows) and one ruled notebook page on the right. It's a planner with a built-in journal: you can record what's happening that week on the left page and then spread out into prose, notes, sketches, or to-dos on the right.
This is the model for people who write more than they schedule. If your "planner" is partly a place to log appointments and partly a place to think out loud — meeting notes, journal entries, idea capture, gratitude lists, daily reflections — this is the one. Bullet journallers who want more structure than a blank Leuchtturm 1917 notebook but more freedom than a rigid planner often end up here.
It's also the one to choose if you're a teacher, therapist, coach, or anyone whose weeks are equal parts scheduled and noted.
Weekly Planner — for the schedulers
The Weekly Planner runs the whole week across one open spread, with vertical day columns broken down by hour. Monday is a column. Tuesday is the next column. You can see the entire week at a glance, with appointments slotting into specific times of day.
This is the model for people whose lives are calendar-shaped. If you book client appointments at 11am and a parents' evening at 5pm on Thursday, the vertical day columns let you see exactly what your week looks like before you commit to anything new. There's a small notes section for each day, but the main act is the time-slotted week-on-one-spread layout.
Freelancers, consultants, salespeople, and anyone whose calendar fills up with specific meetings tend to prefer this format. So do students balancing lectures, seminars, tutorials, and a part-time job.
How to decide
A useful test: open both planners in store (we have all the colours on the shelf) and look at where your eye naturally goes. If it drifts to the ruled page on the right, you want the Weekly Planner & Notebook. If it stays on the calendar grid, you want the Weekly Planner.
If you genuinely use both — appointments and journalling — pick whichever side feels more central to your week. The other side will still be present in some reduced form.
The four 2027 colours
This year's range comes in four cover colours, all hardcover with the signature Leuchtturm rounded corners and elastic band:
- Black — the default, sober and professional. Good for client-facing work, gift-buying when you don't know recipient's taste, or anyone who wants the planner to fade into the background of their bag.
- Dusty Rose — soft pink, popular with people who want a planner that doesn't look like a meeting-room object. Sits well on a desk at home.
- Sunflower — bright yellow. Hard to lose, hard to ignore. Suits journallers and creatives who want their planner to feel like a deliberate aesthetic choice rather than a stationery default.
- Forest Green — deep green, the most timeless of the new colourways. Pairs nicely with brown leather goods, dark walnut desks, and most fountain pen barrels.
All four colours are available in both the Weekly Planner and the Weekly Planner & Notebook.
Specifications at a glance
Both planners share the same physical specs and finishings:
- Size: A5 (145 × 210 mm)
- Cover: Hardcover with rounded corners and matching elastic closure band
- Paper: 80gsm acid-free, FSC-certified, ink-friendly
- Binding: Thread-bound — opens completely flat
- Page markers: Two ribbon bookmarks
- Pocket: Expandable gusseted pocket inside the back cover
- Extras: Detachable note pages, sticker set for labelling and archiving
- Calendar coverage: July 2026 – December 2027 (18 months)
- Year overview: 2026, 2027, and 2028
- Project planner: Long-range planning grid
- International holidays: Public holidays for 58 countries
- Moon phases: Marked throughout
A short note on Leuchtturm
Leuchtturm1917 are based in Geesthacht, just outside Hamburg, and have been making paper goods since 1917 — the name means "lighthouse", and the date is when the company was founded. They became famous in stationery circles because, sometime in the early 2010s, the bullet journal community settled on Leuchtturm's A5 dotted notebook as the default canvas. Today they make some of the most carefully-engineered paper products you can buy at this price.
The planners use the same paper, binding, and construction philosophy as their notebook range. If you've enjoyed writing in a Leuchtturm notebook, you'll enjoy writing in one of these planners.
Available now from bradburyART
The 2027 range is now in stock at bradburyART, both online and at our shop on Callender Street, Belfast. All four colours, both planner formats, ready to ship UK-wide.
If you're not sure which to choose, drop in to the shop and we'll happily put them side by side on the counter for you. If you can't get to Belfast, the Weekly Planner & Notebook and the Weekly Planner are both online, with photos of each cover colour.
A planner is a small object with a long working life. It's worth taking five minutes to pick the right one.
