Tono & Lims Explained

Tono & Lims is a Korean and Japanese ink company that has been making fountain pen ink since 2018.

History

Started by Takashi Ono and Lim in 2018, Tono & Lims combines Lim's passion and knowledge for ink with Takashi's deep connection to the stationery community. Lim actually comes from a family of ink makers who were primarily in the printer ink industry–his grandfather worked to gather many of the dyes that Lim uses at his workshop. Since starting, they’ve made over 800 inks, expanding to have a lot of fun types of ink like glittery, fragranced, and color-changing inks. The same year they started, they also started their A Space Walk events, a place for people to browse glass pens, dip pens, and of course, sample a lot of ink! 

Part of Tono & Lims' goal is to make it accessible for smaller artists and creators to make custom inks. To do this, the minimum order requirement with larger companies tends to start from the 1000's, so T&L allows for smaller brands who can't make that many to still get the experience of collaborating to create a custom ink! Because they are able to make smaller batches of unique colors, they also create a lot of limited edition inks for events they host, for example when they came to Yoseka and hosted A Space Walk at Yoseka Land, they made us four special inks to celebrate the event! 

A Space Walk

One of the things that Tono & Lims are most known for are their "A Space Walk" events. People are able to browse and purchase from a selection of glass dip pens, inks, and get to experiment with T&L's inks or even get their own custom ink made by Lim. Typically, you'll find 20-30 East Asian stationery brands that specialize in glass or dip pens at these events, along with the Custom Ink Lab and Shimmer Lab. This is a large draw to the event, as glass pens are an artisanal good that can take a long time to be produced, which makes them difficult to find in-person. If you're wondering what the connection between ink and glass/dip pens is, a large part of testing inks is swatching! Glass and dip pens allow you to easily try out inks in person and see the qualities in person, then clean them off quickly and easily. 

Popular Collections

The Friendship Collection started right around when COVID started, when it turned from a fun way to commemorate their friends and the custom inks they had had made to being a way for the community to get access to custom inks when Space Walk events had to be held online. This collection is pretty large, at around 115 inks, and has a lot of fan favorite inks in it! 

Flower Memories is a series inspired by the beauty of flowers. SAKURA - moonlight is a dual shading mauve that represents the color of sakura blossoms illuminated by moonlight. Sakura petals is a beautiful pink shimmer that represents the beauty of falling petals, and then Forget-me-not is a pale blue shimmer that captures the vivid blue of the flowers. 

Puddle Story was a collaboration with Moemi from Idea Switch, a Japanese stationery shop from Fukuoka. The inspiration behind this collection was to show the colors a reflection of a puddle can show as a metaphor for the passage of time. This collection is really popular because of the way they use shading and shimmering to capture the mesmerizing motion of water. 

Tono & Lims x Yoseka - Space Walk 2025 Summer New York with Yoseka is a series of fountain pen inks was created for the Space Walk 2025 Summer New York at Yoseka event and is inspired by the connection between Yoseka and Tono & Lims, featuring special aspects of New York. Each ink in the collection has a unique story and meaning behind it, created in collaboration with Yoseka and produced by Tono & Lims.

Three Year Anniversary Contact Collection was made to commemorate Tono & Lims' three year anniversary, and this special project is named after a variety of friends, artists or stationery professionals around Japan that has collaborated with Tono & Lims. In this playful collection, you may find glass pen makers like LUC or calligraphers like bechori. Explore with Tono & Lims in this imaginative universe where you can celebrate the anniversary together with these artists. You may also find two separate ink colors under each artists' names: one may depict their daily life while the other one showcases their superhero form.

Although this is just a small part of their very large collection, these collections and inks are fan favorites and showcase some of the amazing qualities that Tono & Lims' inks have!