7.16.2010

Pen Spotlight - Noodler's Pens and Ink Samples

Many have heard that Noodler's is coming out with their own line of fountain pens. We will be selling them on our site in the coming weeks. After reading this review by Bleubug, who bought oodles of Noodler's pens, we're a little nervous carrying these. We can at least help one of the issues by putting some padding into the pen boxes before shipping them to prevent any defects by the time they arrive to your door. There's been some buzz around the pen & ink blogs about "ink swatches" and their color representation on the computer screen. Brian Goulet over at Ink Nouveau unveiled his Swab Shop, which is an ink comparison tool, viewing ink swabs of 160+ colors from several brands. Inkophile wrote a post this week as a disclaimer to viewing ink swatches on the 'net. Ink color is a tricky subject that is riddled with inaccuracy when you try and reproduce the hue on another medium like the web. Part of being a fountain pen enthusiast is exploring the scores of different brands and formulas to find something you love. True, it does help when you have a swatch as a general reference, but I'd rather find out myself by loading up the pen and giving it a "go"! Remember our post about Pens and the Age of Consumer Electronics a few months ago? Pocket Blonde found a notepad app that looks a lot like a pocket Moleskine or a Field Notes jounral on your iPad. Steve Jobs is trying to take food off my table! As if you don't already have a Safari, or don't know why you should own one - check out Unposted's Lamy Safari review. If you like pens in general, and I'm talking ballpoint and rollerball pens, you should still have a Safari fountain pen. Do yourself a favor and buy one.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link! I agree 100% that you can't trust ink colors online. I found this out the hard way after toiling hours deep in color management theory before posting my swabs. I did the Swab Shop because I was coming across inks like Diamine Crimson (which you'd think is a dark red, but is actually hot pink) and Diamine Steel Blue (which you'd think is a dark blue-gray but is actually a vibrant turquoise) whose names are poor guidance to the actual color. Many ink brands have somewhat ambiguous names, and most people shopping for inks either rely on hazy pictures taken by bloggers or the non-color corrected swabs done by manufacturers. I wanted to post the swabs to use exactly like you suggested, as a 'general' reference for ink colors, because going by name alone is not a good way to go. Nothing beats using the ink in your own pen, which is why I also offer ink samples of all of the colors in the Swab Shop.

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  2. Thank you for the comment, Brian. It is truly a labor of love when you go through scores of inks and meticulously make sure that each and every one looks as color correct as you possibly can get on the computer screen. I can understand from your perspective that you wish to provide people with more accurate visual information to make a more educated decision. It should increase satisfaction with consumers selecting a bottle of ink.
    From my web design background, I tend to think about browser compatibility in a broader perspective. We cannot assume that everyone, especially Luddite-leaning fountain pen users, have the same technology that we are using to create content for the web. It may be shocking to think that some people still have CRT monitors instead of LCD flatscreens, but they are still out there. At the office, I have two monitors : one is an iMac 26" that is used for graphic work and has a beautiful display, rich with color. On the other side of the desk is a Sony PC flatscreen monitor. Things look VERY different between the two displays. The Sony actually has a cool, blue tone, but the difference is so slight that if you didn't have the iMac monitor next to it, you would think that the PC monitor did a fine job in interpreting color. Despite all that we, as content creators for the web medium, can do to accurately represent an ink color, we cannot account for things like monitor settings, which make our efforts a moot point. As a reference point for people to say, "that color actually is a hot pink instead of a 'crimson' as it is labeled" the swab shop does serve that purpose well. "Accuracy" however, is largely subjective and ultimately up to the lens that the viewer uses, of which you have no control over.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great Article about Fountain Pen Ink
    I like it most...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great Article about Fountain Pen Ink
    I like it most...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for the comment, Brian. It is truly a labor of love when you go through scores of inks and meticulously make sure that each and every one looks as color correct as you possibly can get on the computer screen. I can understand from your perspective that you wish to provide people with more accurate visual information to make a more educated decision. It should increase satisfaction with consumers selecting a bottle of ink.
    From my web design background, I tend to think about browser compatibility in a broader perspective. We cannot assume that everyone, especially Luddite-leaning fountain pen users, have the same technology that we are using to create content for the web. It may be shocking to think that some people still have CRT monitors instead of LCD flatscreens, but they are still out there. At the office, I have two monitors : one is an iMac 26" that is used for graphic work and has a beautiful display, rich with color. On the other side of the desk is a Sony PC flatscreen monitor. Things look VERY different between the two displays. The Sony actually has a cool, blue tone, but the difference is so slight that if you didn't have the iMac monitor next to it, you would think that the PC monitor did a fine job in interpreting color. Despite all that we, as content creators for the web medium, can do to accurately represent an ink color, we cannot account for things like monitor settings, which make our efforts a moot point. As a reference point for people to say, "that color actually is a hot pink instead of a 'crimson' as it is labeled" the swab shop does serve that purpose well. "Accuracy" however, is largely subjective and ultimately up to the lens that the viewer uses, of which you have no control over.

    ReplyDelete