This is the second part of my interview with Konrad Żurawski and Agnieszka Żurawska about their boutique ink company, KWZ Ink.
Part One explored how Konrad started making fountain pen inks for himself, and then realized other fountain pen users wanted to buy his creations, leading to the formation of KWZ Ink. Here, in Part Two, Konrad and Agnieszka talk about Konrad’s ink creation process, and the philosophy behind KWZ Ink.
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KWZ Ink is a boutique ink maker, crafting small batches of fountain pen inks ranging from beautifully executed standard colors to more unusual colors, in both iron gall and dye-based formulas.
Konrad Wojciech Żurawski and his wife Agnieszka Żurawska run KWZ Ink from Nowe Grocholice, near Warsaw, in Poland.
I have been using and reviewing KWZ inks for more than a year and a half, and I’m a huge fan. There are a lot of reasons why.
KWZ Ink has created some wonderful, innovative ink colors. They have mastered how to make inks that are fairly saturated but are easy to clean from pens. They have an entire line of gentle modern iron gall inks, which is so cutting-edge some people have a hard time believing it. But yes, a KWZ iron gall ink can be as low-maintenance as a traditional dye based ink. (KWZ Ink also offers one traditional iron gall ink that’s not so gentle, but is archival.)
Konrad and Agnieszka make their inks by hand in small batches, right down to the hand-written labels. But they devote the same attention to quality control that you find from the very best, long-standing brands.
So instead of reviewing individual inks right now, I wanted to interview Konrad and Agnieszka about KWZ — to get an overview of how they began, and to learn more about the process and the philosophy behind the inks. This is Part One: how they got started.
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Fountain Pen Follies 