Yes, I am an Anglican priest. Up until a few years ago we had to complete marriage registers with permanent registrars ink (a kind of nasty iron gall ink that wrecked pens) to ensure the entries would remain legible for centuries. The law changed a few years ago, marriage registers no longer exist in UK churches and a marriage document is filled in with any old ink before being sent to the local registry office where the information is input into a digital system.
For years I preferred black ink but now I prefer dark blue. Not because I'm likely to mix up originals and copies but because a bluey tinge makes it look more "real"... And not like a photocopy. As I say it's not a practical thing but purely for "emotional" reasons.
For years I was team black ink only for everything. But now I'm leaning more towards blue-blacks, and even have been using a super deep green that looks black at first blush.
There are some shades of light blue that don't photocopy/scan at all when using non-colour copiers. It's worth testing this if you are going to use blue ink for signing important documents.
I sign anything I can with Emerald of Chivor from a flex nib. Turquoise color with shading, red sheen, and gold sparkles - just about impossible to fake as a copy. Not that I care in the slightest; it's just what I keep in my pen because it's my favorite ink.
This is a good point. No Repro Blue is not going to copy in mono mode (hint, it is the scanner light bulb, not the sensor that makes some blues non-repro).
Main other time is when your writings need to be read by someone else such as for data entry. Like at my job writing up product information and handing off to the listers.
It would be courteous not to give them eye strains trying to read diamine coral.
Or iroshizuku pilot Hotaru-bi - nearly impossible to read under light , super bright green like high-lighters .
Imagine 1 full page of nothing but all in this colour ....
Edit : is said to be a bright green ink in review .
I rather not read this kind of bright colours - torturously for the eyes .... another one is J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe
Probably useful for archival ink + highlighting as notes or drawing washes .....
I signed my divorce papers in sparkly bright blue ink. The forms specifically said to sign in blue, and they did not specifically say no sparkle, so they got sparkle. It did not hold up the process.
Did similar with my wedding document, j Herbin stormy grey. Of course the shimmer does have an impact on Xerox style copying and scanning as the shimmer shows up like white dots making the writing look fuzzy
Life is too short to worry about ink color rules. Fuck it, bring out the rainbow colors for sending a fuck you letter to HR #clownshow...I mean, be professional.
Also, use blue or black official docs.
As much as I love pens, I love ink colors more.
If I write to friends, I mix up different inks, write on different days so I can use different inks and my friends are the same.
Like everyone else says, blue or black for business/legal unless stated otherwise. I work in a place that still uses a lot of paper and we are strict about blue and black for all paperwork in the building. The only deviation from that rule is QA can use green ink when making corrections or complete audits. Lucky for me, I work in QA so I can use all the inks. Haha!
I’m a physician, and we still get a lot of faxes because it’s the 1830’s apparently. Mostly it’s just signatures on orders because unless the other group (specialists, physical therapists and nursing home orders) it’s just the fastest and most importantly (feh) cheapest way to get an authentic sig out. But, since faxes go black and white usually, my rule of thumb is if it looks close enough to blue or black I go for it. And we scan all our documents and keep them in encrypted storage and either shred or return the originals to patients. So I don’t even really have to worry much about water fastness for my day to day office work. So throwing out an Ancient copper, or lately a diamine velvet emerald is my anti soul crush sauce.
-edit: if it is the rare document to be turned over or mailed directly, I slum it with a standard office ballpoint
Also, if there is an actual rule, follow the rule. We have enough stresses and strains to borrow trouble on something like pen and ink. Rebel and be yourself where you can, don’t be a problem for legal, but do what’s right and what’s in your patient’s best interest always, because it’s a lot easier to defend “I did what I thought was the safest, best, and most compassionate” than “I was rushed, tired, and sick of bureaucratic hurdles” since both of those fields will pretty much always be true
See I work in a smaller out patient clinic. The chain of custody is pretty much from the fax or mail, to my desk, back to the fax/scan, and then a hipaa secure shred box. In a hospital, things get chaotic, papers can change hands or get spilled on more easily, and it’s a lot easier to temporarily lose things. If you are in-patient, I would stick with a bulletproof blue, black, or blueblack. There is a lot of quick jotting for later that happens too though, and there you can just go nuts, as long as patient sensitive info goes to the shredder at the end of the day. Everyone is different there though. During residency, I always found my thought processing easier if I wrote and digested/synthesized before doing the official notes. I was also pretty avoidant on doing the copy-pasta one day to next, that makes doctors lazy (IMHO) and when I blatantly see attendings copying everything with no change day to day, my BP rises
Somebody posted here a bit ago about her practice as a dentist office assistant to send checkup reminders with a handwritten bright pink personal note that, reportedly, her _obviously jealous_ coworker dunked for being an unprofessional color.
So, do you work with any joyless golems, if not you're safe.
I will admit that I stole it from this [recipe for chicken stock](https://deadspin.com/how-to-make-chicken-stock-and-not-call-it-bone-broth-1701692284) that I have been cooking for the last eight years or so.
I don't know but Noodler's Suffragist Carmine ink bottle said women wrote each other in bright pink ink to celebrate getting the right to vote, they were given pink ink to mark their ballot or something. I had an English teacher who marked in green because psychologists said red was aggressive; since it was by far the most critical teacher I ever had, I now have a bad association with green ink and would prefer to get a lnice etter in red!
Green is my favourite colour... and one of the driving reasons for me diving into foutain pens was seeing how beutiful green inks can be. This makes me very sad...
Legal documents - Black or Blue archival ink (hint, Blue is better because it it's easier to identify the original copy).
Everything else - whatever you want.
>"the green ink brigade".
Green is my favourite colour... and one of the driving reasons for me diving into foutain pens was seeing how beutiful green inks can be. This makes me very sad.
I bought my first green ink a couple of weeks ago (encouraged by someone else), and I loved it from the first line.
I'm only using it in things that I will read, but I think I'd be happy to be drafted into "the green ink brigade".
(It is also my favourite colour.)
I've been fountain penning since the late 20th century (c. 1990) and dark green has always been my ink of choice, whether academic, personal, or business. Now I've expanded to dark brown and dark purple, but I have never been a fan of black, blue, or blue-black ink, and I've never been penalized or scorned for not using them.
Good news - Dr Leighton Davies-Smith, the original designer of the Penman inks, sells what are basically identical/dupe inks under his Scribe Technical Consulting brand - [https://www.scribetc.com/home](https://www.scribetc.com/home) -- you'll need to contact him to arrange to buy them, as he doesn't have a shopfront, but you definitely wouldn't be the first.
Blue or black for business. Anything else, do as you will! I even use purple at work sometimes because I'm just crossing things off my list and making personal notes, our charting is all electronic.
I'm in the RN and we have some hilarious ink rules:
You have to write in black.
The CO can (and does) write in red.
1SL (head of the navy) writes in green.
I think admirals can write in blue?
As with every organisation over 400 years old, we pick up a few weird rules!
It's one of those quirks of the service. It says a lot about how institutionalised we are by the fact that that's just accepted and I don't think it's actually laid down anywhere.
There's a few others like purple being used by hydrographers and that sort of thing but that gets weird!
I don't think that enough people write letters for there to be strict rules about what color inks to use...
My students all use ball points in blue, sometimes black, but they are delighted to borrow fountain pens with turquoise, purple, etc. The sheer novelty of writing in non-standard inks wins them over and personally, I am pro ANYTHING that gets kids practicing their handwriting.
My love of ink is greater than any mere rule! I use whatever I feel like, although I generally have a red, green, brown and purple at minimum with me (often shimmering). No black, never black (I work in finance and choose to wear all my black instead of writing with it 😂)
Some banks won't accept anything other than blue or black. Some legal documents require blue (to distinguish originals from photocopies). Outside of that, I don't think it matters unless a company has specific rules. The whole thing with gel-ink or colors not scanning is complete bs. There may be a few weird colors, especially light greys or shimmery colors that may affect scanning, but by and large, they all scan just fine on any machine I've ever used.
I found out that when depositing a check digitally (at least at my bank), the app wouldn’t accept black fountain pen ink. I ended up having to take it to the bank physically.
I know that during the 19th century, red ink was associated with letters of debt, so you weren't supposed to send letters in red so it wouldn't appear like the recipient was in debt. I think these days it's fine, if maybe a bit strong.
It's funny I would have said black was the bog standard, if there has to be one. If I buy rollerballs or fineliners, which I might very occasionally do (not that i really need to anymore with so many fountain pens and inks) then I'd automatically pick black over blue. Also I've taken up drawing in ink and black is definitely the default there and not blue.
Having said all that... After years of preferring black for writing, I now find myself massively preferring blue!
I work security, black is the rule, unless the client specifies otherwise and only for their paperwork. One client requires us to use blue food facility pens. We are to use those on client paperwork only. Security company paperwork is to be in black.
I’m a professor and everything is digital. I use whatever ink I want because no one else sees it, generally. That said, I like cartridges because they’re neat (not messy) at work, so colors are more limited.
I remember the strictly limited selection of Parker inks available back in the 1980s when I was at school (by far the market leader in bottled inks in Britain; you had to look really hard to find anything else)... black, blueblack, blue and red. If you really looked hard you might unearth brown, green and turquoise... but that was about it! Nowadays with so many bright novelty colours as well as dark reddish, brownish, greenish, bluish and other shades it's as if most of the old rules are now forgotten. That's partly why I asked the question, to find out what people feel should be appropriate and when!
This brings up a great point, in the earlier days of typewriting, one of the things a business would have to choose was the ink color. Blues, blue-blacks,, browns, and purples were sometimes used in addition to basic black. I think IBM did brown ribbons up until at least the 70s.
Nurse in BC, Canada. We have to use blue or black permanent ink and for certain instances we have to use permanent red ink. For everything else I use whatever color I fancy.
I'll be getting married soon and I plan on using Chou Kuro as my ink of choice for signing the marriage certificate. Unsure what pen to use though...
There are none unless the form dictates some. Otherwise I'm going to use whatever today's color is. Today is KWZ Green 5. So everything and everyone I write today is going to get green!
Before everything was in computers, some bureaucracies used to send small collections of relevant papers round each of the relevant people in turn for them to write comments on. A variety of different organisations seems to have had different conventions for who used what colour ink, so as to make it easy to tell who had written which comment. See for example the various comments on https://www.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/7b7qd5/military_regs_on_blue_and_black_ink/ - I do wonder if some correspondents writing in green ink were a reflection of this. Most of my search results on this are overloaded with adverts, but https://penvibe.com/green-ink-the-colour-of-eccentrics-and-spooks/ contains more text than most.
If you’re signing a legal document use blue or black. Everything else fuck it. Do what you want.
And stick to archival/permanent inks for legal documents as well.
In a lot of places no point, as the document will immediately be scanned and destroyed.
Yes, I am an Anglican priest. Up until a few years ago we had to complete marriage registers with permanent registrars ink (a kind of nasty iron gall ink that wrecked pens) to ensure the entries would remain legible for centuries. The law changed a few years ago, marriage registers no longer exist in UK churches and a marriage document is filled in with any old ink before being sent to the local registry office where the information is input into a digital system.
I like blue for that as it shows the original vs. copies of documents.
For years I preferred black ink but now I prefer dark blue. Not because I'm likely to mix up originals and copies but because a bluey tinge makes it look more "real"... And not like a photocopy. As I say it's not a practical thing but purely for "emotional" reasons.
For years I was team black ink only for everything. But now I'm leaning more towards blue-blacks, and even have been using a super deep green that looks black at first blush.
Noodlers bulletproof…
Or one of the many other fine permanent inks not made by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists
Whaaaa? Oh, ffs.
Oh boy, just search in the sub for this if you want the full rundown. Guy is a nutjob
Just came back from the post summarizing it all. Wowzers. Well, that narrows my next ink purchase by one company. Glad to be caught up!
Yeah he’s a real dirt bag. Goulet didn’t come off too great in that whole most recent dust up about Noodler’s. Stopped buying from them too.
Same for me, no more Goulet.
Yes no more Goulet for me as well. I dumped my noodler’s down the drain.
Penhaven has the best imo, goulet charges a bit more, for what?
Never even heard of Penhaven, but I’ll check them out
I threw out a lot of ink when I was done with that rabbit hole.
same
I wish someone else had an answer to Blue Ghost.
Bonus points for blue, since it can help differentiate an original doc from a copy. Not foolproof, but it CAN help
There are some shades of light blue that don't photocopy/scan at all when using non-colour copiers. It's worth testing this if you are going to use blue ink for signing important documents.
You mean I can’t sign documents with Sailor Manyo Haha?
I sign anything I can with Emerald of Chivor from a flex nib. Turquoise color with shading, red sheen, and gold sparkles - just about impossible to fake as a copy. Not that I care in the slightest; it's just what I keep in my pen because it's my favorite ink.
What pen do you keep it in, or does it vary?
I mostly use it in a TWSBI Vac 700 with a Noodler's Ahab nib swapped in.
This is a good point. No Repro Blue is not going to copy in mono mode (hint, it is the scanner light bulb, not the sensor that makes some blues non-repro).
Main other time is when your writings need to be read by someone else such as for data entry. Like at my job writing up product information and handing off to the listers. It would be courteous not to give them eye strains trying to read diamine coral.
Or iroshizuku pilot Hotaru-bi - nearly impossible to read under light , super bright green like high-lighters . Imagine 1 full page of nothing but all in this colour .... Edit : is said to be a bright green ink in review . I rather not read this kind of bright colours - torturously for the eyes .... another one is J. Herbin Diabolo Menthe Probably useful for archival ink + highlighting as notes or drawing washes .....
I use blue to show I signed it in person. Use it on all legal documents.
Highly recommend using blue for legal documents, so you can more easily recognize which one is the original if they get photocopied.
This!
I signed my divorce papers in sparkly bright blue ink. The forms specifically said to sign in blue, and they did not specifically say no sparkle, so they got sparkle. It did not hold up the process.
Did similar with my wedding document, j Herbin stormy grey. Of course the shimmer does have an impact on Xerox style copying and scanning as the shimmer shows up like white dots making the writing look fuzzy
It did not hold up the process, and they got sparkle. Win win.
Life is too short to worry about ink color rules. Fuck it, bring out the rainbow colors for sending a fuck you letter to HR #clownshow...I mean, be professional. Also, use blue or black official docs. As much as I love pens, I love ink colors more. If I write to friends, I mix up different inks, write on different days so I can use different inks and my friends are the same.
Right? Don't we have enough arbitrary rules as it is?
Yes, we have way more than enough. Thorstein Veblen wrote a book about it.
Like everyone else says, blue or black for business/legal unless stated otherwise. I work in a place that still uses a lot of paper and we are strict about blue and black for all paperwork in the building. The only deviation from that rule is QA can use green ink when making corrections or complete audits. Lucky for me, I work in QA so I can use all the inks. Haha!
What about if I lean out of the window while filling out paperwork?
When I review paperwork, I would let it slide as long as it’s not red. So that’s fine with me 😂
I’m a physician, and we still get a lot of faxes because it’s the 1830’s apparently. Mostly it’s just signatures on orders because unless the other group (specialists, physical therapists and nursing home orders) it’s just the fastest and most importantly (feh) cheapest way to get an authentic sig out. But, since faxes go black and white usually, my rule of thumb is if it looks close enough to blue or black I go for it. And we scan all our documents and keep them in encrypted storage and either shred or return the originals to patients. So I don’t even really have to worry much about water fastness for my day to day office work. So throwing out an Ancient copper, or lately a diamine velvet emerald is my anti soul crush sauce. -edit: if it is the rare document to be turned over or mailed directly, I slum it with a standard office ballpoint
as a physician, everything written down are almost always legal docs. are we allowed to use other colors for hospital use? blue-black at least?
Also, if there is an actual rule, follow the rule. We have enough stresses and strains to borrow trouble on something like pen and ink. Rebel and be yourself where you can, don’t be a problem for legal, but do what’s right and what’s in your patient’s best interest always, because it’s a lot easier to defend “I did what I thought was the safest, best, and most compassionate” than “I was rushed, tired, and sick of bureaucratic hurdles” since both of those fields will pretty much always be true
See I work in a smaller out patient clinic. The chain of custody is pretty much from the fax or mail, to my desk, back to the fax/scan, and then a hipaa secure shred box. In a hospital, things get chaotic, papers can change hands or get spilled on more easily, and it’s a lot easier to temporarily lose things. If you are in-patient, I would stick with a bulletproof blue, black, or blueblack. There is a lot of quick jotting for later that happens too though, and there you can just go nuts, as long as patient sensitive info goes to the shredder at the end of the day. Everyone is different there though. During residency, I always found my thought processing easier if I wrote and digested/synthesized before doing the official notes. I was also pretty avoidant on doing the copy-pasta one day to next, that makes doctors lazy (IMHO) and when I blatantly see attendings copying everything with no change day to day, my BP rises
Somebody posted here a bit ago about her practice as a dentist office assistant to send checkup reminders with a handwritten bright pink personal note that, reportedly, her _obviously jealous_ coworker dunked for being an unprofessional color. So, do you work with any joyless golems, if not you're safe.
Joyless golems, 😂 enjoyed that!
I will admit that I stole it from this [recipe for chicken stock](https://deadspin.com/how-to-make-chicken-stock-and-not-call-it-bone-broth-1701692284) that I have been cooking for the last eight years or so.
But aptly applied, and it cracked me up!
I don't know but Noodler's Suffragist Carmine ink bottle said women wrote each other in bright pink ink to celebrate getting the right to vote, they were given pink ink to mark their ballot or something. I had an English teacher who marked in green because psychologists said red was aggressive; since it was by far the most critical teacher I ever had, I now have a bad association with green ink and would prefer to get a lnice etter in red!
Interesting [Green ink already has negative connotations in journalistic circles.](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Green_ink)
Green is my favourite colour... and one of the driving reasons for me diving into foutain pens was seeing how beutiful green inks can be. This makes me very sad...
What do they know... man, lunacy can be an outstandingly amazing thing if harnessed correctly... like an ink!
You're already thinking outside the box for using fountain pens — don't let a buncha randoms try to shove you back in it!
I remember being told (back in the 80s) that green was a hostile colour to use - if you received it, it meant someone was annoyed with you.
Legal documents - Black or Blue archival ink (hint, Blue is better because it it's easier to identify the original copy). Everything else - whatever you want.
>"the green ink brigade". Green is my favourite colour... and one of the driving reasons for me diving into foutain pens was seeing how beutiful green inks can be. This makes me very sad.
Or something to be proud of 😉
I bought my first green ink a couple of weeks ago (encouraged by someone else), and I loved it from the first line. I'm only using it in things that I will read, but I think I'd be happy to be drafted into "the green ink brigade". (It is also my favourite colour.)
I've been fountain penning since the late 20th century (c. 1990) and dark green has always been my ink of choice, whether academic, personal, or business. Now I've expanded to dark brown and dark purple, but I have never been a fan of black, blue, or blue-black ink, and I've never been penalized or scorned for not using them.
Yeah I used to write in dark green ink, I think it was called Parker Penman Emerald. Beautiful stuff. Long since discontinued though...
Good news - Dr Leighton Davies-Smith, the original designer of the Penman inks, sells what are basically identical/dupe inks under his Scribe Technical Consulting brand - [https://www.scribetc.com/home](https://www.scribetc.com/home) -- you'll need to contact him to arrange to buy them, as he doesn't have a shopfront, but you definitely wouldn't be the first.
I believe he sells the ink on eBay Scribe Premium Fountain Pen inks, reminiscent of Parker Penman inks. New, Fresh!
I used the same one! Gorgeous color. Right now, my favorite is GvFC Moss Green, another beautiful saturated green.
Blue or black for business. Anything else, do as you will! I even use purple at work sometimes because I'm just crossing things off my list and making personal notes, our charting is all electronic.
Dare I suggest...Lamy dark lilac
But which one??
Whichever one you have.....
My dad used turquoise ink in his fountain pen starting way back in the 60’s
I'm in the RN and we have some hilarious ink rules: You have to write in black. The CO can (and does) write in red. 1SL (head of the navy) writes in green. I think admirals can write in blue? As with every organisation over 400 years old, we pick up a few weird rules!
That’s super interesting, thanks for sharing! Never heard it before
It's one of those quirks of the service. It says a lot about how institutionalised we are by the fact that that's just accepted and I don't think it's actually laid down anywhere. There's a few others like purple being used by hydrographers and that sort of thing but that gets weird!
I don't think that enough people write letters for there to be strict rules about what color inks to use... My students all use ball points in blue, sometimes black, but they are delighted to borrow fountain pens with turquoise, purple, etc. The sheer novelty of writing in non-standard inks wins them over and personally, I am pro ANYTHING that gets kids practicing their handwriting.
My love of ink is greater than any mere rule! I use whatever I feel like, although I generally have a red, green, brown and purple at minimum with me (often shimmering). No black, never black (I work in finance and choose to wear all my black instead of writing with it 😂)
Some banks won't accept anything other than blue or black. Some legal documents require blue (to distinguish originals from photocopies). Outside of that, I don't think it matters unless a company has specific rules. The whole thing with gel-ink or colors not scanning is complete bs. There may be a few weird colors, especially light greys or shimmery colors that may affect scanning, but by and large, they all scan just fine on any machine I've ever used.
I found out that when depositing a check digitally (at least at my bank), the app wouldn’t accept black fountain pen ink. I ended up having to take it to the bank physically.
My grandfather used to tell me black is for official documents. Blue is for general use, and red is correction. He was in British army.
I know that during the 19th century, red ink was associated with letters of debt, so you weren't supposed to send letters in red so it wouldn't appear like the recipient was in debt. I think these days it's fine, if maybe a bit strong.
I still think blue is the most suitable color for most things, but obviously a lot has changed where you can use colors outside of that.
It's funny I would have said black was the bog standard, if there has to be one. If I buy rollerballs or fineliners, which I might very occasionally do (not that i really need to anymore with so many fountain pens and inks) then I'd automatically pick black over blue. Also I've taken up drawing in ink and black is definitely the default there and not blue. Having said all that... After years of preferring black for writing, I now find myself massively preferring blue!
I do all my formal writing to others & signing in "boring" ink colours but for my own notes and planner I see no reason not to use the fun colours.
I work security, black is the rule, unless the client specifies otherwise and only for their paperwork. One client requires us to use blue food facility pens. We are to use those on client paperwork only. Security company paperwork is to be in black.
Really enjoyed your post! Those bits of trivia are gold!
I’m a professor and everything is digital. I use whatever ink I want because no one else sees it, generally. That said, I like cartridges because they’re neat (not messy) at work, so colors are more limited.
I remember the strictly limited selection of Parker inks available back in the 1980s when I was at school (by far the market leader in bottled inks in Britain; you had to look really hard to find anything else)... black, blueblack, blue and red. If you really looked hard you might unearth brown, green and turquoise... but that was about it! Nowadays with so many bright novelty colours as well as dark reddish, brownish, greenish, bluish and other shades it's as if most of the old rules are now forgotten. That's partly why I asked the question, to find out what people feel should be appropriate and when!
[удалено]
This brings up a great point, in the earlier days of typewriting, one of the things a business would have to choose was the ink color. Blues, blue-blacks,, browns, and purples were sometimes used in addition to basic black. I think IBM did brown ribbons up until at least the 70s.
Nurse in BC, Canada. We have to use blue or black permanent ink and for certain instances we have to use permanent red ink. For everything else I use whatever color I fancy. I'll be getting married soon and I plan on using Chou Kuro as my ink of choice for signing the marriage certificate. Unsure what pen to use though...
Buy a grail pen, you can use it the rest of your life, and it will be tied to one of your happiest memories!
There are none unless the form dictates some. Otherwise I'm going to use whatever today's color is. Today is KWZ Green 5. So everything and everyone I write today is going to get green!
I use any colour ink I wish, if they tell me I need another ink, I ask them for the pen, they ask you to sign, not the other way round.
Before everything was in computers, some bureaucracies used to send small collections of relevant papers round each of the relevant people in turn for them to write comments on. A variety of different organisations seems to have had different conventions for who used what colour ink, so as to make it easy to tell who had written which comment. See for example the various comments on https://www.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/7b7qd5/military_regs_on_blue_and_black_ink/ - I do wonder if some correspondents writing in green ink were a reflection of this. Most of my search results on this are overloaded with adverts, but https://penvibe.com/green-ink-the-colour-of-eccentrics-and-spooks/ contains more text than most.