Ferris Wheel Press

I’ve been desperately searching for more local makers of stationery lately. As noted before, Canada lost its pencil industry in the early 2000s, and despite being one of the world’s largest paper pulp sources, does not do very much of the final production of quality paper products. Many of the Canadian makers of stationery accessories source their goods in mainland China, which has a well-established bespoke washi and sticker industry. Canada, alas, is just a little too small for local manufacturing in our globalized world.

Except, it seems, for ink! Probably because it can be produced in smaller batches, and does not require the same manufacturing investment, a small stationer out of Toronto has become a global leader in high-end fountain pen inks. Ferris Wheel Press is present in stationery shops around the world, including luxury pen shops from Amsterdam to Tokyo. I see stationery enthusiasts from across the world using their lovely bottles in their pictures and videos all over Instagram. Their signature 80s throwback teal theme is instantly recognizable, despite its departure from today’s trend of stark white design.

Of course price-wise, the high end of the ink market makes sense as a target for Canada, since the local market is so small. Their focus on design that denotes luxury (though I’m sure ink formulas, in general, are basically the same everywhere) allows them to market their wares all over the world. They make heavy use of good accents and screen print on their glass bottles, big and small.

I’ve not yet purchased their largest bottle, the globular 85ml bottles, but I have enjoyed several of their more modest 38ml bottles and several of the 5ml “sampler” bottles. One thing I will say is that their online merchandising is not entirely successful for me. Rather than showing swatches or samples of written use of the ink, they try to reflect the ink colours by colouring the filled bottles in the on-paper colour, which creates an illusion that all the inks will be as watery as Kool-Aid. I’ve had to buy on the assumption that the ink will in fact not be watery Kool-Aid, and of course when the bottle arrives, it is dark and opaque regardless of the colour inside.

Ferris Wheel Press’s inks include lots of “shimmering” inks, of which unfortunately I lack a huge amount of paper to take advantage. They also offer a number of pens (these not make in Toronto, but rather in Taiwan): The Brush, their high-end offering; The Carousel, a more modest and lightweight fountain pen without the hefty price; and The Roundabout, a rollerball pen that uses fountain pen ink cartridges and converters, something exceptionally rare out there.

I personally tried the Roundabout, and was surprised at how poor the experience was. The watery nature of fountain pen ink means the result on the paper is more like a gel pen than a traditional ballpoint. But the flow of ink is very iffy. I found that to guarantee a mark on the page I needed to hold the pen at an exceptionally acute angle, which was very uncomfortable and even more extreme than what an average fountain pen requires. As a natural pencil-user, I’ve often found the transition to fountain pen writing uncomfortable for this reason, and the fact that the Roundabout requires an even further adaptation has relegated it to a curiosity in my collection rather than a daily tool of the trade.

I would recommend Ferris Wheel Press for their inks, the only made-in-Canada inks I’ve so far uncovered, and all so far very lovely to use. I highly recommend them. The company’s luxury focus and attention to detail mean they do have an image to protect which likely means fewer duds in general, but the Roundabout pen is definitely one of these, and as it doesn’t even sport the novelty of nationalism, I can’t recommend it.