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 bright green of spring to the meditative black of winter, changing color is a simple yet powerful way to attune your writing to your mood - and to take care of yourself, even if just a little.
Your desk wardrobe
Every morning, there's a moment when a fountain pen writer pauses for a second before starting.
It's not indecision. It's a silent question: what color am I today?
We choose our clothes based on how we feel. We change music according to our mood. We order what we need at the bar at that moment, not always the same thing.
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 to attune our writing to the mood of a particular day.
Inks are a wardrobe. And like any self-respecting wardrobe, it changes with the seasons.
Spring: the courage of color
When the light returns and the days lengthen, something also stirs in the desire to write. It's the time when we return to vibrant colors, those that seemed too much during the gray weeks - and now, instead, seem just right.
A bright green like Iroshizuku Shin-Ryoku ā forest green, dense and vital ā on the page of a diary open to 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 pressing ideas and want to see them take shape.
In spring, you write to begin. The color must be up to the task.
Summer: brightness and lightness
Summer brings with it a different kind of writing - faster, lighter, often outside the usual schemes. Travel notes, postcards, to-do lists that are actually lists of things to experience.
It is the season of bright blues and turquoises - inks that seem to contain the reflection of the sea. A J. Herbin Bleu Myosotis, an intense and clean blue, on a white sheet under the July light, is one of the simplest and most beautiful things you can do with a pen in hand.
In summer, you write to capture. The color must be as bright as the moment.
Autumn: the richest season
Autumn is the season of inks par excellence. There is something about the low October light, the warm colors of the leaves, the air that invites you indoors to write ā that almost inevitably calls for certain palettes.
The deep reds, the burgundies, the ambers. The J. Herbin Ambre de Birmanie ā warm, bright, with an almost resinous transparency ā on ivory paper is a visual experience that takes your breath away.
Paired with a Leonardo Momento Zero Lava-Ash, with its fiery oranges and mineral grays, it creates a chromatic system that seems made for writing important things.
In autumn, you write to reflect. The color must have depth.
Winter: elegance and interiority
Winter draws writing inward. Thoughts become slower, denser. The page becomes a place to be, not just to pass through.
It is the time of deep grays, of almost black blues, of blacks with soul ā like the Iroshizuku Take-Sumi, bamboo charcoal, which is not simply a black but a silent presence on the page. Or abyssal blues like the Shin-Kay, which on short, cold days has something meditative, secluded about it.
In winter, you write to understand. The color must have silence.
What color are you, today?
There is no right answer. There's yours, right now.
Perhaps you are in the bright green phase of a project that is starting.
Perhaps you are in the burgundy of an evening when you want to write something that will last.
Perhaps you are in the quiet gray of a January Tuesday when putting your thoughts in order is enough.
Changing ink is not a whim. It's a way of caring for your writing - and, a little, for yourself.
Explore our selection of inks ā from J. Herbin to Iroshizuku ā and discover what color you want to write with today.
