Why is blue the default ink colour?

[mackthepen]

Why is it that blue is the basic/default ink colour? If you buy a fountain pen with cartridges included they will always (to the best of my knowledge) be blue. Likewise ballpens, as standard, come with a blue refill.

 

I contrast, printed text is seldom anything but black, whether it's on books, magazines, newspapers, or forms.

 

Why this difference, and how did it arise?

 

Andrew

 

Edited to correct a typo

Edited August 21, 2009 by mackthepen

[RLTodd]

I thought Black was the default.

[ralphawilson]

And while we're at it, why is the sky blue?

[laplume]

I thought Black was the default.

 

I thought so, as well. And that blue is used to tell the original from the (Photo)copy. But is an interesting debate.

[mackthepen]

Maybe it's a British thing then? Whenever you buy a cartridge pen here it comes with blue cartridges. (Compared to the sky - where the default colour is grey - blue is the exception).

 

Andrew

[laplume]

These days most pens come with either black or blue carts, is true. Default business and default school colors, respectively? Just guessing.

[ralphawilson]

I wonder if it might be as simple as majority taste: if given a range of ink color options, perhaps more people choose blue. Obviously, if so you could argue that they are influenced by tradition, conformity, etc. But I do notice more blue jeans around than black ones.

[Goodwhiskers]

I think ralphawilson is onto something. Blue is more cheerful to me than black. Also, the availability and prices of different dyes (natural and artificial) may have influenced traditions too.

[FrankB]

I do not know if blue and black were/are easier to produce or if it is just tradition. I am middled aged and all my life I have seen blue and black as default inks, as well as a lot of blue-black. When I was young in the 1950's and '60's, blue, black and blue-black were all I saw, although red ink was used by teachers and accountants. That is why I have taken to using different colors, the brighter the better.

[lapis]

IYAM it's about 40% blue and 40% blue-black, the rest is the rest.

 

Best

[TheHOINK]

Aloha-he....

 

in medieval times monks were pretty much the only ones who knew how to write.

That's why cloisters became so rich, since they did all the "bussiness stuff" and "office work" in contratcs, reading and writing for the mighty ones.

Most european inks at that time have been made out of roses and "tree skin" from plum-trees. (sometimes it is hart if you do not know a word to describe what you mean.)

 

Inks made out of roses get a dark, saturated blue, I even did this once in primary school, which even gets darker by time.

And when it is made out of dried plum-tree skin and / or the seeds you get out of cherrys and plums, ink mostly gets a dark, saturated violett tone.

Since the formula for rose inks was, as far as I remember, easier to do and more common known since performed by larger religious groups like the benedictians, it was more known as the violett inks.

 

(I had 11 semesters of calligraphy in education, and my mentor made all his inks and chinese inks and colours himself, and taught as a lot about their production.)

 

When printing machines started, they needed a colour which would stay on paper, and since most papers who were mass-produced for printing were soaking ink like hell, they needed a dark and thick liquid, which was suitable for "offset-printing devices, or in times before the industrialisation, iron-lettering-printing plates.

(I just begin to see how limited my vocbulary on these things is.)

The traditional chinese ink, which is water-resistand uses different ashes and liquids which make it black, and npot blue, like european colours. These formulas have been changed, and mixed up with oils and charcoal to make a fat, liquid colour, which could be used for "mass production", since common blue ink wa much to liquid and they never found a way to make it thicker.

 

Additionaly, when mass-produced black coloured books and newspapers came up, a lot of people loved to use different coloured inks to "stand out" from their prints while making notes.

Blue, besides black, is also one of the more light resistant colours, compared to red, which will vanish quite fast.

 

Another factor in historicall wys seems to be, besides producing ink from roses an having a nice, standout colour, that blue has been a watersoluble ink-colour, AS LONG AS IT WAS FRESH. When rose ink stays on cellulose for a longer time, it gets nearly black.

A lot of americans most important papers in their history have been of a blue to purple once, and have blackened over time. Writing caused a lot of drops and drips, with quills, around 1880 with the upcoming "steel nibbed holders" and with early fountain pens. Therfefore it was easier to use blue instead of black, since ou could bleach it away, almost completely.

 

 

To end up my wisecracking between historical facts and "what is suspected by scientists", do you know how european medium nibs have been defined once?

 

There has been a size, which has been the space between two letters while using single iron letters for sitting ion a plate which you used to print a page.

The space between two letters, the boarder, was called "Durchschuss" in german, something like the "through shot", since the lettters have been "shoved" or "shot" into their respective place.

Exactly the space between two letters from copper and iron plates has been used as the guideline, and this size has been called "1 Punkt", which is pretty exactly 0,35mm.

 

0.35 or 0,35mm is still used today, you find it everyday in your computer, which is the "pt" part in using your letters in word, open office etc, every programm using fonts.

That is why some are so different in size, since you always have to take a look of the spacing and kerning between the letters to define the pt-value for this font.

 

Therefore 0,35mm is the standard size for rapidograph medium, fountain-pen medium and ballpoint-medium. Ballpoint medium is 0,7mm, but this is concerning the diametre of the ball inside of the pens tip. To define the line width of the ballpoint, xou divide the balls diametre per two, which already equals... ta-daaa..0,35mm

 

Thanks a lot for your time reading this darn long post ^_^

 

Hope some things gave you an idea.

 

Thanks again,

TheHOINK

[mackthepen]

Aloha-he....

 

in medieval times monks were pretty much the only ones who knew how to write.

That's why cloisters became so rich, since they did all the "bussiness stuff" and "office work" in contratcs, reading and writing for the mighty ones.

Most european inks at that time have been made out of roses and "tree skin" from plum-trees. (sometimes it is hart if you do not know a word to describe what you mean.)

 

Inks made out of roses get a dark, saturated blue, I even did this once in primary school, which even gets darker by time.

And when it is made out of dried plum-tree skin and / or the seeds you get out of cherrys and plums, ink mostly gets a dark, saturated violett tone.

Since the formula for rose inks was, as far as I remember, easier to do and more common known since performed by larger religious groups like the benedictians, it was more known as the violett inks.

 

(I had 11 semesters of calligraphy in education, and my mentor made all his inks and chinese inks and colours himself, and taught as a lot about their production.)

 

When printing machines started, they needed a colour which would stay on paper, and since most papers who were mass-produced for printing were soaking ink like hell, they needed a dark and thick liquid, which was suitable for "offset-printing devices, or in times before the industrialisation, iron-lettering-printing plates.

(I just begin to see how limited my vocbulary on these things is.)

The traditional chinese ink, which is water-resistand uses different ashes and liquids which make it black, and npot blue, like european colours. These formulas have been changed, and mixed up with oils and charcoal to make a fat, liquid colour, which could be used for "mass production", since common blue ink wa much to liquid and they never found a way to make it thicker.

 

Additionaly, when mass-produced black coloured books and newspapers came up, a lot of people loved to use different coloured inks to "stand out" from their prints while making notes.

Blue, besides black, is also one of the more light resistant colours, compared to red, which will vanish quite fast.

 

Another factor in historicall wys seems to be, besides producing ink from roses an having a nice, standout colour, that blue has been a watersoluble ink-colour, AS LONG AS IT WAS FRESH. When rose ink stays on cellulose for a longer time, it gets nearly black.

A lot of americans most important papers in their history have been of a blue to purple once, and have blackened over time. Writing caused a lot of drops and drips, with quills, around 1880 with the upcoming "steel nibbed holders" and with early fountain pens. Therfefore it was easier to use blue instead of black, since ou could bleach it away, almost completely.

 

 

To end up my wisecracking between historical facts and "what is suspected by scientists", do you know how european medium nibs have been defined once?

 

There has been a size, which has been the space between two letters while using single iron letters for sitting ion a plate which you used to print a page.

The space between two letters, the boarder, was called "Durchschuss" in german, something like the "through shot", since the lettters have been "shoved" or "shot" into their respective place.

Exactly the space between two letters from copper and iron plates has been used as the guideline, and this size has been called "1 Punkt", which is pretty exactly 0,35mm.

 

0.35 or 0,35mm is still used today, you find it everyday in your computer, which is the "pt" part in using your letters in word, open office etc, every programm using fonts.

That is why some are so different in size, since you always have to take a look of the spacing and kerning between the letters to define the pt-value for this font.

 

Therefore 0,35mm is the standard size for rapidograph medium, fountain-pen medium and ballpoint-medium. Ballpoint medium is 0,7mm, but this is concerning the diametre of the ball inside of the pens tip. To define the line width of the ballpoint, xou divide the balls diametre per two, which already equals... ta-daaa..0,35mm

 

Thanks a lot for your time reading this darn long post ^_^

 

Hope some things gave you an idea.

 

Thanks again,

TheHOINK

 

Thank you - I think this is probably the answer I was looking for.

 

Andrew

[TheHOINK]

Aloha...

 

Glad, MackThePen, I could at least give a hint about what might be reasons for blue inks being the standard.

 

And about blue jeans being more common than black ones....

 

Black is not existant as a pigment. It's as simple as that. Black is always a combination of different shades of brown, blue, green or red (in this decreasing percentage).

 

If you put some black ink from a felt-tip-Marker, Signature Pen, Alcohol Marker or a Fountain pen onto some tissue, or even better some wite chalk, and hang it into water, so it can soak the water......

 

Lemme start different...

 

Take a piece of tissue or a piece of chalk.

Make a small dot or square near one end of the tissue / chalk, and hang it into water so that the tissue (chalk) get's wet but the colour is not touched.

Both materials will soak water and therefore will soluble the ink upwards, and the ink will get more and more "faded". While fading, it splits up into it's original colour based dyes and pigments. And you can see which colour was the base of your black ink.

The more neutral, the better, the blacker.

 

That's why I, to have a better control on my working instruments, always take wet brushes and water down ink, from black to complete water on a paper in a long row.

I keep these papers to controll the shading and to know which job might require which brand or shading.

You would be surprised how many companys selling the most expensive and most luxury black inks use the most simple structured and most cheap dyes.

 

For example Pelikan has a very light blue shading, Lamy is green (heavily green), Montblanc has a reddish violett tone, which is quite "cheap" to produce, since you need classical plum-seeds / stones.. (the things you get after you ate a plum, which is in the middle, like with cherrys... hope seed is the right term)

 

 

Back to our Blue Jeans.

 

Dyes most remarkable trademark is to stay watersoluble, pretty much forever.

Pigments, on the other hand, remain water-resistand, especially after having their time to chemical react with cellular structures.

Therefore, you use pigment based liquids to colour jeans, loincloth, paper, tissue etc.

 

And to finish wisecracking this time... from colouring clothes blue, the term "blue monday" is coming from.

It, by no means, is equal to "feeling blue", like in Blues Music. It is another medieval term.

 

Since man can remember, people have used only ONE pigment, to colour clothes. This pigment is called Indigo.

But indigo needs a certain acid to be soluble, since it is completely water-resistant, like a stone.

Therefore it needed some knowledge to colour with it, andit needed a lot of money to afford blue pigments (that's why we still speak of "royal blue", it has been, together with purpur, which was gained from snails pigments, one of the most expensive colours in medieval times around europe.).

 

When dissolving blue, it needed some sort of concentrated acid, and the "Leinenfärber", the "cloth colourists" used (people with a weak stomach and good imagination, do stop reading now) used their own urin / pee / whataver you want to call this liquid stuff, and collected it for weeks in a barrel ^_^

It already neede to rott, that was the sign the "Harnsäure" was strong enough in it, and the blue pigments of Indigo could be solubled.

But it was stinking like hell, and therefore they had to do it outside of the towns walls, while other people rested.

 

"Färber" had the right to work on sundays, since everyone else was in town or the church to have their "resting day without work", and they have been working outside of town like the executioner, mostly because of the stink.

But since they have been working on sundays, they could take their freetime on monday.

Indigo just get's blue AFTER drying, and not while being wet and in contact with the acids.

So, while the "Färber" did not work and where lying around next to their precious and expensive stinking clothes, they were waiting for the cloth to get it's blue colour.

 

So you still speak of "making blue" for being lazy in german.

 

Another long long post, after all, thanks for your time reading, I hope it was at least a little understandable and maybe interesting.

Thanks again.

 

TheHOINK

[ofpwriter]

TheHOINK, it was and it is... and yes. I'll be reading these again later. There was this "history of ink" website (which is basically a book online) mentioned on another thread and it is interesting - but haven't had the time to read that properly either.

 

Thanks for posting! And for the OP: I just hate that the "included" cartridge is always blue, usually also washable...

 

-O

 

Edit to add the website: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/boo...sofInk/toc.html

Edited August 21, 2009 by ofpwriter

[TheHOINK]

OFPwriter, thanks a real lot for the link, it looks very interesting.

 

I always get so much good stuff from Finland, mostly informations and music, there must be god sources for both ^_^

(Mstly infos by friends and board members from there and music by Asmegyn, Finntroll, Ensiferum, Moonsorrow, Einherjer etc.. you get it ^_^)

 

Thanks for the book of ink link, I will read it carefully with a nice cup of coffee or so.

Thanks.

 

TheHOINK

[Inka]

I've only gotten a couple of new fountain pens in my lifetime, so I'm not one to really say what the "norm" is, only the few I've seen have all had black ink cartridges.

 

Back in 1985 I bought a Montblanc 'Classique", it came with Premium Black ink in a gold cartridge, pen long since gone [i think one of my sisters stole it, among other things].

When I got a Levenger; Plumpster it came with a Levenger Raven Black starter cartridge.

The "kit" pen in my Avatar came with a cartridge of "unknown" blue ink, but since it's a kit pen and not mass-produced it could have come with anything the pen maker desired, since he's from South Africa maybe he thought blue to be the norm [?] when it's typically black ink cartridges as the actual norm here in the U.S., for fountain pens that is, from what I've seen.

I've purchased a few defective Sheaffer's Vacuum-Fil pens for restoration, that all had dried blue ink inside; while not cartridge pens I did find it interesting such old U.S. fountain pens all had dried blue ink in the barrels & feeds.

 

In the U.S. most documents need to be signed in black ink, especially Official U.S. Government docs, a few outside companies including state require blue ink so that photocopies are easily recognized as copies and not the originals.

Maybe it is geographical, as although I've not had many fountain pens in my lifetime the few had black ink cartridges and not blue.

While the majority of ball-points, roller-balls and Gel pens I've purchased over the years all came with Medium Point Blue as a standard, so I had to buy Fine Black replacements each and every time.

[TheHOINK]

Thanks, Inka, for pointing out another reason I forgot, the blue today often is necessary to distract copy from original signatures.

Thanks, I really forgot about it a few minutes ago, although I spoke about exactly this to someone on tuesday *tehe* ^_^

 

TheHOINK