The marker

The problem is that the markers are very good. They are probably accurate on a level that would impress Pantone. Really the best antecedent is Pantone: you know what you’re getting, every single time; it performs well; there is no similar analogue.

In our flush days at Draft, I have sometimes contemplated buying the full set of them. Why not? Business expense. Yolo, etc. I’m a terrible artist but an excellent creative person. My buying the full set would be like the equivalent of a tech person cashing out their stock and building a music studio to jam for a half-hour on the weekend. We live in a society. There are better things to do.

Like Pantone, it’s also a buy-once sort of thing. Oh yes, there are refills and replacements, and you’re supposed to tend after your markers like they’re a car or something. And with Pantone, you’re technically supposed to replace the deck every couple of years, because the colors are unstable and fade slightly. Nobody does any of this in practice. You blow a lot of money on them and run the things into the ground.

Designers are used to buying once. We like our tools to be durable. We like to sit down to the practice knowing, roughly, what we’ll get. Perhaps this is because the whole rest of our careers are so precarious & volatile. Perhaps this is becuase we’re reminded of our own deaths every time we try to create. We want legacies, something that will not be wiped from the planet after we’re gone. We venerate the personalities & creations of those who last. It’s all we remember.