The Hong Kong Colour Archive
Designer / Illustrator
I conceived the product to merge the joy of ink swatching with the preservation of Hong Kong's cultural aesthetic.
This project was born out of a selfish intent: I wanted a swatch card substantial enough to withstand heavy water washes and reveal the fluid chemistry of fountain pen ink chromatography. But utility wasn't enough; if I was building an archive, I wanted it anchored in the visual soul of Hong Kong.
The first challenge was translating the iconic, vintage begonia window grilles onto paper. Originally celebrated for how they filter light through textured glass, replicating them on an opaque medium required a shift in design thinking. The goal became finding a way to evoke that architectural nostalgia, using the tactile depth of paper to replace the transparency of glass.
If the begonia pattern laid the structural foundation, the cover typography had to capture the living visual soul of the city. To anchor the archive in authentic nostalgia, I drew inspiration from the golden era of Hong Kong’s streetscape—a landscape defined by towering neon signs and colonial-era graphic vernacular. The main title features a vintage, hand-lettered Chinese script paired with a clean English subtitle, echoing the dual-language commercial signboards that once illuminated narrow avenues. Together, these deliberate type choices do not merely label the paper; they reconstruct a rich, collective impression of my home.
Bridging cultural heritage with the medium of ink, I integrated a minimalist hand-drawn quill emblem on the cover. Executed as a single, continuous line, the symbol quietly mirrors the bent glass tubing of vintage neon lights while signaling the product's ultimate purpose: calligraphy, handwriting, and paper arts. Every line and layout choice on the cover serves a dual role, honoring the raw graphic energy of Hong Kong while setting an intentional stage for the ink that will eventually fill the page. The result is a design anchored deeply in place, memory, and utility.