Dutch design studio Today Designers has printed a book using a very special kind of ink—squid ink.
The book, entitled Naar Inkt Vissen (which translates to “Fishing For Ink” in English), contains 48 pages full of sailor stories written by Menno Smit and Edwin de Voigt. In order to add even more nautical flair, the 700 screen printed copies of the book were bound with fishing wire using a Japanese stab-binding technique.
This is not the first time that Today Designers have delved into the stranger side of printing. In 2012, they produced Het Vulkanen Boek, or “The Volcano Book”, which was printed with a special ink developed using ash from an Icelandic volcano.
How much squid ink does the printing of 700 books require? According to Today Designers, this task was accomplished using only one and a half liters of ink, which the studio sourced from a fish auction in Scheveningen, a town on the Dutch coast.
However, as unique as this book of fish tales may be, you might not want to own a copy; the designers spoke to Dutch magazine de zeen about the book’s only flaw:
It smells, stinks and reeks. We are talking about a penetrating fishy smell here, caused by the squid ink with which the book is printed.
Though the fishy smell only enhances this particular book’s specific oceanic theme, it’s probably not something most people will want to keep on their coffee table.
What do you think of printing with squid ink? Would you buy this book even though it “reeks” of fish? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image/thumbnail, ink in water image via Shutterstock.
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