What color are you today?
How your ink changes with the seasons — and with your mood
We choose our clothes based on how we feel.
Why not do the same with ink? From the vibrant green of spring to the meditative black of winter, changing colour is a simple yet powerful way to attune your writing to your state of mind — and take a little care of yourself.
The desk wardrobe
There is a moment, every morning, when fountain pen writers pause for just a second before beginning.
It is not indecision. It is a silent question: what colour am I today?
We choose our clothes based on how we feel. We change music according to our mood. We order at the bar what we need in that moment, not always the same thing.
And yet we tend to think of ink as something fixed — the usual blue, the usual black — when in fact it is the most immediate tool we have for attuning our writing to the mood of a specific day.
Inks are a wardrobe. And like any self-respecting wardrobe, it changes with the seasons.
Spring: the courage of colour
When the light returns and the days grow longer, something stirs in the desire to write as well. It is the moment when we return to vivid colours — those that in grey weeks seemed too much, but now feel just right.
A vibrant green like Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku — forest green, dense and vital — on the page of a diary open in the March sun has something declarative about it.
It says: I am here, I am starting something. It is the ink of those who have ideas pressing to take shape.
In spring we write to begin. The colour must be equal to the task.
Summer: luminosity and lightness
Summer brings a different kind of writing — faster, lighter, often outside the usual patterns. Travel notes, postcards, to-do lists that are really lists of things to live.
It is the season of luminous blues and teals — inks that seem to contain the reflection of the sea. A J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis, intense and clean blue, on a white sheet under the July light, is one of the simplest and most beautiful things one can do with a pen in hand.
In summer we write to capture. The colour must be as luminous as the moment.
Autumn: the richest season
Autumn is the season of inks par excellence. There is something in the raking October light, in the warm colours of the leaves, in the air that invites one to stay inside and write — that calls certain palettes in an almost inevitable way.
Deep reds, burgundies, ambers. J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie — warm, luminous, with an almost resinous transparency — on ivory paper is a visual experience that slows the breath.
Paired with a Leonardo Momento Zero Lava-Cenere, with its fiery oranges and mineral greys, it creates a chromatic system that seems made for writing important things.
In autumn we write to reflect. The colour must have depth.
Winter: elegance and interiority
Winter draws writing inward. Thoughts grow slower, denser. The page becomes a place to dwell, not just to pass through.
It is the moment for deep greys, near-black blues, blacks with a soul — like Iroshizuku Take-Sumi, bamboo charcoal, which is not simply a black but a silent presence on the page. Or abyssal blues like Shin-Kay, which on short, cold days has something meditative, something withdrawn about it.
In winter we write to understand. The colour must have silence.
What colour are you, today?
There is no right answer. There is yours, right now.
Maybe you are in the vibrant green of a project just getting started.
Maybe you are in the burgundy of an evening when you want to write something that will last.
Maybe you are in the quiet grey of a Tuesday in January when putting thoughts in order is already enough.
Changing ink is not a whim. It is a way of taking care of one's writing — and, a little, of oneself.
Explore our selection of inks — from J. Herbin to Iroshizuku — and discover what colour you want to write in today.
