So I’ve now picked up a total of three inks from Anderillium: Cuttlefish Brown from their “Celphalopod Series,” Shoebill Stork Grey from their “Avian Series,” and now the special “Michigan Avenue” ink that I picked up this past May at the 2022 Chicago Pen Show. All three inks are excellent. While Anderillium may have had some reported issues with the initial formulation of their inks when the company first launched, those are years in the past and I can vouch that every ink I have tried so far behaves quite well.
The Michigan Avenue ink is a dark teal, formulated to reproduce the oxidized bronze color of the lions standing guard over the Art Institute of Chicago. I love this color - it’s dark enough to ensure legibility for everyday office work, while at the same time showing enough depth to remain interesting. While it might be a touch dark to qualify as a true reproduction of oxidized bronze - I’d compare the color more to Sailor Miruai - Michigan Avenue is an extraordinarily well-behaved ink that dries nearly instantaneously and doesn’t feather or bleed. I’ve run through two fills already!
Following up on yesterday’s post, I did today’s writing sample on Maruman Mnemosyne paper, to give you all an idea of how this paper handles ink, and how the Anderillium ink behaves.
Zero bleed with this paper/ink combination, even with a very wet ink swatch.
Takeaways and Where to Buy
Thus far, my experience with Anderillium Inks has been consistently good. While this ink was a pen show exclusive, and technically could only be purchased at the Chicago Pen Show, Chicago-based Atlas Stationers appears to still have some in stock. You can purchase other Anderillium inks directly from the T.G.S. Curated Shop, quite reasonably priced at $14.50 for a 1.5oz (approximately 45ml) bottle of ink. The Anderillium Ink bottles resemble jelly jars (in fact, they might be jelly jars), which means that for at least the first half of the bottle, you can easily refill larger-diameter pens with big nibs.
Anderillium mentions on their website that all of their inks are made in-house by their own resident chemist, without using animal products and with an eye to sustainability and environmental preservation. You can read more about the company, its practices, and even the artwork on the website and ink bottles here.