f. 1rLaid, unsized · 90 g/m²

A note on writing inks

Why ink feathers

A drop of ink does not sit on paper. It moves into it. A sheet is a mat of cellulose fibres, and every gap between two fibres is a narrow channel that pulls water along by capillary action. The water travels first and the pigment follows, so a blot grows a pale rim before its dark centre catches up. Where the fibres run long, the stain runs with them and the edge breaks into fine hairs. Calligraphers call this feathering.

Papermakers fight it with size. Old European writing papers were dipped in warm gelatin, which coated the fibres and slowed the wicking enough for a pen line to stay sharp. Unsized paper drinks ink instead. Clerks kept a sheet of it on the desk to lift wet writing and called it blotting paper. It was often dyed pink. Before it was cheap, they dusted the page with fine sand from a pounce pot.

For more than a thousand years the standard writing ink in Europe was iron gall. Oak galls were crushed and steeped to release their tannins, then mixed with green vitriol, which is iron sulphate, and thickened with gum arabic. The ink goes on pale and darkens as the iron oxidises in the air, settling to the black-brown of medieval charters and of Bach's manuscripts.

It also eats the page. The acid and the loose iron break down cellulose, and the heaviest strokes in old manuscripts can crack and fall out of the sheet. Conservators call this ink corrosion. Every word on this sheet is set in type, and every word is within reach of the ink.

Set in EB Garamond and Bodoni Moda. One drop from the well is about 0.05 mL.