menu

DESIGN

HOUSE

Be inspired by the timeless designs Laura has been creating since 2002 and begin your own paper experience with our calligraphy and color visual. Find out today how we can be of service— no matter where you are in the wedding planning process. 

DESIGN

HOUSE

Learn how Laura and Alyssa continue to foster the cornerstone of their company with calligraphy tools and teaching for beginners, hobbyists and beyond— as well as in-person services to enhance events and take the stress out of stationery.   

Discover how Laura’s beloved landscape contributes to her creativity and be inspired to make every day artful with curated calligraphy solutions, fine art influenced by Foxhill, and sought-after garden goods.

DESIGN

HOUSE

Discover how Laura’s beloved landscape contributes to her creativity and be inspired to make every day artful with curated calligraphy solutions, fine art influenced by Foxhill, and sought-after garden goods.

DESIGN

HOUSE

DESIGN

HOUSE

Meet Laura Hooper and Alyssa Law, the practiced pair behind the Design House, and discover how Laura’s beloved landscape in Foxhill Garden contributes to her creativity.

Calligraphy Supply Spotlight: Black Ink

If you’ve been following our pointed-pen calligraphy work and online shop full of high quality calligraphy supplies, then you know that we carry a full line of Ziller inks in a rainbow of colors. Some of these, that I specifically developed with Rich and the Ziller team based on my own mix preference, are exclusive to our shop! We also carry one other black calligraphy ink – McCaffery’s – and we’re often asked about the difference between the two black inks.
Laura Hooper Calligraphy Black Ink
The Ziller black ink
is quite a bit thicker, and more opaque. I use it for all of my envelope addressing and other handwritten projects. It’s great for any work you plan to scan and vectorize for printing because of its opaqueness. It’s also waterproof which is great if you’re concerned about raindrops landing on the envelopes you’ve worked so hard on. It is lightfast, meaning it won’t fade over time if you’re using it for frameable art, such as poems, wedding vows or song lyrics. The same goes for all the Ziller inks in our shop, though I wouldn’t recommend using those for scanning. I always use my Ziller black for that.

McCaffery's Black InkThe McCaffery’s is perfect for practice, especially if you’re working on Spencerian calligraphy. It’s great for getting fine lines, but not so great for scanning because of this. It is a lighter “black” (more like a gray, I think) and won’t work well for vectorizing. It does darken as it dries, however. I love the fineness of the lines, but sometimes I want the writing to be more black, so in that case, I just add some Higgins ink to it which is a thinner ink, just to darken it. The ink is corrosive, so you need to remember to wash your nib (or use your high powered nib cleaner!) after each time you use it if you intend to use that nib again. Again, I love it for practice, and it’s pretty simple to make it darker if desired.
Both jars (along with all the inks in our shop) have a wide enough mouth to dip your oblique pen/nib right in, no dinky dips required.
One popular ink that I NEVER use? Sumi. Sumi ink is inexpensive…and there’s a reason for that. I’ve found that it’s too thin and doesn’t give a crisp enough line for my liking. It tends to bleed on a lot of envelopes, so you’d have to use thickener just to make it usable in that case. Plus, my Spencerian instructor, Michael Sull, told me never to use it, so if that’s not a good enough reason, I don’t know what is! 😉

Join our email list to get updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Take 15% off your first shop purchase & stay up to date on new releases, shop sales & other news.

disclaimer & Terms

Thank you for your interest in Laura Hooper Design House. All images are copyright 2022 by Laura Hooper Design House unless we have otherwise credited them. We invite you to link to the LHC blog or use the photos in your own blog as long as it is accompanied by a credit & link back to the initial blog post. Please do not take any of my work for commercial OR personal use without getting permission from us first.

If we have missed a credit somewhere, please let us know at hello@laurahooperdesignhouse.com ! We want to recognize all contributors for their work.
The LHC Blog may contain paid advertising banners and/or affiliate links in our blog posts. An affiliate link means that we may receive a commission on sales of the products that we link to in our posts, however, we only post about items that we have recommend regardless of commissions received.
While we welcome comments and adore our readers, please note that comments of a purely promotional nature, containing links to other websites will be rejected automatically. We reserve the right to delete any comment that we deem to be inappropriate.