As Ana indicated in yesterday’s post, we have thoughts about color! Or rather, thoughts on where Pantone’s lack of color has gone.
A few years ago a colleague of mine wrote an article called “Where Have All the Colors Gone?” and it got me thinking about this trend. All of a sudden I was noticing that our world was becoming significantly more beige. I’m not exactly sure the cause.
Some studies posit that in today’s world we get blasted with marketing content, tv, digital streams and more, with everything in bright colors and that using more neutral colors in decor, clothing, etc. helps us reset and calm in between. Others look to the influence of Nordic cultures and the concept of “hygge” which tends toward soft, neutral colors and a sign of coziness, particularly in winter.
In the knitting industry in particular, there has been a huge rise in garments and accessories in beige, ivory, ecru, tan – the “natural” colors. Here I think the idea is it inspires coziness and also allows the knitter to imagine themselves in the garments, even if they tailor them to their own color preferences.
Frankly, I’m so confused by it all. To me, most hobbies exist in technicolor. Sure our fountain pen experience can be in black and white (or blue and white, or blue-black and white), but there is so much color to be had in thousands of beautiful inks. Sure you can buy your Hobonichi planner in a plain black, but the covers are part of the fun right?
And most hobbies have an element of color. Do you love to garden? Tons of natural color. Cook? An abundance of fresh colors in produce, spices and other elements. Photography? Studying the world through light and color. And I won’t go into all the artistic hobbies (painting, drawing, all the needle arts….).
To bring it back to stationery, I love color. Give me all different colored pens, and all different colored inks. Even my notebooks aren’t plain!
What do you think? Do you prefer neutrals or more color? How do you think this slow bleeding of color will affect pens and inks and stationery?
I’m a knitter/spinner/dyer/sewist as well as stationary person, and I agreeeeeeeee – color is one of the entire reasons I’m here, you know? I think the beige-ification of everything rn is strange as heck.
Personally colors are uplifting. Unfortunately we live in era where people are easily offended by everything. The lack of color is the best offensive.
I know of many people who tend to fill several fountain pens at one time, but their “Currently Inked” list shows similar colors – blues and blacks, mostly. I understand this if they’re using their pens in a professional environment, I guess. And I’ve noticed an increase in ink offerings from different makers that do tend to lean more beige. I feel like a little of this is fine, but I hope ink makers recognize that half the fun of using different inks for many of us is the wide variety of color all along the rainbow and beyond. I’ve struggled with the trend to make inks so pale they’re barely legible. I hope we get over that one soon, as it makes me hesitant to buy something that looks dark enough on an online swatch, as in a pen it often turns out not to be.
I’m all about color! I keep 4 pens loaded and ready to go. There is always a purple and this month I added some greens!
Though there are usually a dozen or so pens loaded, at the moment there are four. One’s inked with red, one with a golden yellow, one with a bright green, and one with blue. Recently written dry, cleaned and put away were purple, orange, black, sparkly turquoise, bright pink, a few more.
I’m very much a color person, and I don’t know what ink can come out of Pantone’s 2026 gaffe beyond “Emperor’s New Clothes,” but lately neutral-colored FPs have been growing on me. I love my Scribo Maddalena, which is a kind of pinkish taupe in color, and I adore my Aurora Volterra. Lately I’ve been eyeing the Leo MZ Serenity, although didn’t buy it in the end. I do think a dose of neutral is nice sometimes, but Pantone’s choice for 2026 was ridiculous.