Free from the Tyranny of Choice

[Londonista]

After many years of trying a rainbow selection of inks from many manufacturers, I have finally settled on four colours (all Diamine).

 

• 1 PRIMARY (all the time, default)
• 1 SECONDARY (occasional)
• 2 TERTIARY (I'm feeling alternative today.)

 

Strangely three out of four of them are Diamine 150th Anniversary inks and these are the ones I'm sticking with. (Yes I actually have been).

 

It feels freeing not to have to worry if there's "a better colour out there". It also saves money.

 

Stick yer pen in the ink pot, 'n write....

 

Anyone else find themselves just using a very small set of inks and saying "hang the rest"?

[ajoe]

4 minutes ago, londonmyth said:

Anyone else find themselves just using a very small set of inks and saying "hang the rest"?

 

I only use black ink and only ink from the company that made the pen (when possible), so I guess I qualify.

[aaamax]

Diamine sepia for the win!

When not appropriate I use a standard India black.

 

Other colors are fun, but I grow tired of them very quickly.

[JulieParadise]

Yeah, I can see myself doing that, restricting myself to just a handful of colours ... after I have tried ALL THE COLOURS OUT THERE to be sure I did not miss the best! 😉

 

No, seriously, the concept sounds good and it would be nice to have less than maybe 30 colours/inks that I just love to use, say 6-10 that are staying, but since I really tried out a lot -- and like to try out a lot -- I have only managed after ca. 5 years to pare down my favourites to groups of colours yet, not single inks.

[PithyProlix]

1 hour ago, londonmyth said:

After many years of trying a rainbow selection of inks from many manufacturers, I have finally settled on four colours (all Diamine).

 

• 1 PRIMARY (all the time, default)
• 1 SECONDARY (occasional)
• 2 TERTIARY (I'm feeling alternative today.)

 

Strangely three out of four of them are Diamine 150th Anniversary inks and these are the ones I'm sticking with. (Yes I actually have been).

 

So, tell us the four colors!

 

1 hour ago, londonmyth said:

Anyone else find themselves just using a very small set of inks and saying "hang the rest"?

 

I could do that but why? It's too fun and I'm not overly excessive with my purchases. (I'm not looking for a better versions of colors I already have - I just like the variety.)

[LizEF]

41 minutes ago, JulieParadise said:

Yeah, I can see myself doing that, restricting myself to just a handful of colours ... after I have tried ALL THE COLOURS OUT THERE to be sure I did not miss the best! 😉

[Londonista]

1 hour ago, PithyProlix said:

So, tell us the four colors!

 

My personal colour choices are inconsequential. 🙂

 

1 hour ago, PithyProlix said:

I could do that but why?

 

Because of the tyranny of choice. It's a thing, you can look it up. Always unsatisfied, always looking to the horizon for the grail and never being happy with what you have.

 

But then I suppose that's consumerism.

[ajoe]

5 minutes ago, londonmyth said:

But then I suppose that's consumerism.

 

Stick around here for a while, and you will find that those of us who are not into consumerism is a very very small minority.

[lapis]

3 hours ago, londonmyth said:

Anyone else find themselves just using a very small set of inks and saying "hang the rest"?

Well, yes and no. Yes, in principle because I already have way too many inks. No, because I don't know if I could or would settle for 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 etc.

Strangely (again, in the sense that it's not at all strange), I could very well imagine (I think) that all inks I'd keep (well, maybe) might be Diamines for several reasons -- often not pertaining to a lot of other brands --

• Out of their >100 inks, I already have most or all of my favourite colours

• Their behaviour is, even if put very generally / quite basically, more than "good enough"

• They are IYAM inexpensive and always easy to come by

• They are modern enough yet boast enough history to show that they remain stable

• Their 80-ml bottles are okay. Not the best (like GvFC's or MB's) but definitely better than e.g. Noodler's, 1670's or Diamines' 30ers. Their 150^th bottles IMO are "silly"... at most fine for a Lazy Suzan full.

[Londonista]

17 minutes ago, ajoe said:

Stick around here for a while, and you will find that those of us who are not into consumerism is a very very small minority.

 

Oh.

 

5 minutes ago, lapis said:

{Diamine} Their 80-ml bottles are okay. Not the best (like GvFC's or MB's) but definitely better than e.g. Noodler's, 1670's or Diamines' 30ers.

 

I have a couple of them (the pens I own [4] are generally fine nibbed, so the quantities last a long while). I decanted them into some Akkerman bottles and now just top those up very occasionally.

 

Value for money, Diamine are outstanding.

[USG]

This is such an interesting topic.  Years ago I went through draws of inks, finally settling on Aurora Blue for my desk pens and Penman Mocha for my smaller M600 [F] carry pen.

 

Fast forward to recently and I’m trying different inks again.  What happened was I was looking at some pages I wrote something like 10 years ago, with Private Reserve Lake Placid blue, under “daylight” LED ceiling lights, and the color just jumped off the page like it was glowing.

 

Wow, I said to myself, I never noticed that before.  And so began a new search for blues of that ilk, like Iroshizuku Ajisai, which i really liked but was too wet for some of my pens on Kokuyo paper.

 

Anyway, that’s when I had my biggest revelation.  I had been using a pretty bright halogen desk lamp for years and decided to pop a regular 60W LED DAYLIGHT bulb into a small  unused desk lamp to see how things looked under white light…….   And WOW, every ink I ever used changed color.  The difference between halogen light and white LED light was something I never expected .

 

Iinks that we’re uninspiring under halogen light took on new vibrancies and looked totally different under “white” light, and Ajisai never looked better.😀

 

So the moral of my story is, it’s not only the ink, it’s the light.  Duh! 😃

 

[lapis]

Right on! Everybody's always talkin' about the pen and the ink, some about the paper, least about the lighting. Funnily enough (actually not all that hilarious), lighting is the absolutely least expensive but in this case most valuable part.

[PithyProlix]

1 hour ago, PithyProlix said:

I could do that but why?

 

32 minutes ago, londonmyth said:

Because of the tyranny of choice. It's a thing, you can look it up. Always unsatisfied, always looking to the horizon for the grail and never being happy with what you have.

 

But then I suppose that's consumerism.

 

Not the same. I could stop right now - even get rid of most of my ink - and still be happy. As I wrote, it's fun - not stressful or dissatisfying. 

 

Problems start when we come to think of our 'wants' as 'needs' and become attached to them. It's a lingering dissatisfaction. Buddhists call it dukkha.

 

I really like pizza and, if there were decent pizza restaurant near where I live (there's not) I would frequent it, I'm sure. But I am still happy with whatever food that's in front of me, pizza or not. (Brussels sprouts excepted.) 

[PithyProlix]

3 minutes ago, lapis said:

Right on! Everybody's always talkin' about the pen and the ink, some about the paper, least about the lighting. Funnily enough (actually not all that hilarious), lighting is the absolutely least expensive but in this case most valuable part.

 

Totally agree and I started a thread about this a while back when I was looking for a desk lamp. Also, my writing area is intentionally situated in front of a big window which I open most of the time, giving lots of indirect sunlight during daylight hours. 

[Londonista]

10 minutes ago, PithyProlix said:

Not the same. I could stop right now - even get rid of most of my ink - and still be happy. As I wrote, it's fun - not stressful or dissatisfying.

 

In which case I would respectfully suggest (to quote ajoe) you are also in a very, very small minority.

 

Some people also lie to themselves of course 🙂 (I know I have done). I could stop.... if I wanted to...

 

I gave away 95% of my inks, and I must admit I've not missed them.

 

I started this thread because I was curious to see what others did. Now I have a feeling for it. Thank you.

[USG]

16 minutes ago, PithyProlix said:

 

Totally agree and I started a thread about this a while back when I was looking for a desk lamp. Also, my writing area is intentionally situated in front of a big window which I open most of the time, giving lots of indirect sunlight during daylight hours. 

Hi PP-

Which desk lamp did you end up getting?

Ever since my “white light “ revelation. I’ve been hunting for a replacement.  
I grabbed a cheap LED on Amazon in the meantime, but it’s not bright enough.

[dragondazd]

I think the tyrrany of no choice is a little more tyrannical and something I avoid in many instances. I don't even have the same coffee beans week by week.

 

If you want to reduce your own choices and stick with great options for ink, good on you. For me, ink is a lot more about experimentation and exploration at this point. I used to look for the perfect x of a color. Now I just try samples out of novelty and buy bottles of what feels good.

 

P.s. you will probably get a different mix of responses here outside the ink fora.

[inkstainedruth]

@londonmythI can't imagine limiting myself to only four inks.  If it works for you?  Great.  

But me?  I like to play with nuances of color (that might partly be chalked up to having a degree in art, and stuff like the color theory classes I took.  I like being able to have similar colored inks with different properties -- such as which will work better in X pen vs. Y pen, which inks are better for signing checks and addressing envelopes, etc.  

And while some people might call it "consumerism", I call it "supporting small businesses" (not just the ink companies, but also the pen shops and e-businesses that sell their products).  Given the number of ink manufacturers that have come onto the scene since I first joined FPN in 2012, I am clearly NOT in the minority.   

I use different inks/ink colors for different purposes.  And yes, even though black isn't my first color choice for ink, I actually (gasp) have two pens inked up with black at the moment -- although one of them is a Parker 61 that I've been slowly reconstituting whatever was in the pen when I got it (the seller didn't know, having gotten it from an estate sale). 

I tend to buy samples first whenever possible, so I'm only out a few bucks per vial (and then, if I like inks well enough to spring for full bottles, the sample vials become GREAT traveling inkwells).  

But I also get bored easily.  So I will swap out inks fairly regularly, making sure I have at least one that I can depend on to be water and UV resistant for signing checks and addressing envelopes.  My old bank, before getting bought out, used to insist on checks being filled out in either blue or black;  but NEVER blinked an eye when "black" was Noodler's El Lawrence; or "blue" was Noodler's Kung Te Cheng....  And what's more fun than that? 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PithyProlix]

1 hour ago, USG said:

Hi PP-

Which desk lamp did you end up getting?

Ever since my “white light “ revelation. I’ve been hunting for a replacement.  
I grabbed a cheap LED on Amazon in the meantime, but it’s not bright enough.

KEXIN 12W 72LED Desk Lamp 

https://a.aliexpress.com/_m03Plg2

 

This was a good value for the price when I got it a little over 2 years ago. I am happy with it but there are probably a lot more and better choices now. I suggest looking for ones with a high Color Rendering Index (CRI). 

[Horseflesh]

4 inks? Eh, I dunno about that. I got rid of all my ink long ago, and try to keep all my pens dry and clean.