150 Years Of Ink.

Diamine is a British ink company whose inks I discovered relatively recently (about four years ago) and they not only have a bewildering range of colours, they make their inks right here in the UK - Liverpool - and have done so for the last 150 years. I have a big box full and if any of my projects have used colour in the last four years or so, it’ll be Diamine inks you’lll have seen.

The company is headed by a Christine, a formidably organised and ambitious woman who always makes time for a chat while overseeing her modest but hard-working team of ink makers and packers. The inks are created by family member Phil, who invents new types of inks and new colours.

Having had a really nice working relationship for a while, they asked me to design a 150-year anniversary edition box which reflected the company's longevity and the diversifying users of their inks.

The bottles themselves were a special edition, made in Italy like all their bottles, in the shape of triangles which have to be snugly fitted into an easily-stackable rectangular box. (At first I misunderstood their brief and designed a triangular box then a pizza-style box to fit all the colours in as a set…I think I was quietly re-writing it!)

Looking across the years, it only made sense to reach back for the detailed flourish-adorned turn-of-the-century advertising style with one hand while grabbing a handful of my own vivid blobby ink-splats with the other:

I also suggested the inclusion of some good old-fashioned ‘Happy Birthdays’ and party balloons!

But finally this was the outcome, complete with a hand-drawn version of the company logo:

- and a panel left on the front of each box for the inclusion of the relevant colour sticker. Here are the boxes piled up in a delicious splendid colour pile:

The bottle itself had a matching sticker and, as you can see from this example, my bottles of the new colours have already been thoroughly waded into by my brushes.
Hurrah!

Thank you Christine and Phil for letting me design this most significant of birthday outfits. Here’s to more collaborations to come!

Now…if they would just let me get their hands on that website…

 Christine has now been united with the original art - better on her office wall than in my archive!