Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Purple Reign





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The color purple. Red + Blue. Not to be confused with violet. Historically, it was the color of royalty because it was so expensive to obtain. Weight for weight the dye was as expensive as silver - kind of like how expensive pure saffron is today. The ancient Phoenicians created the Tyrian purple/ imperial purple color dye from mucous (never thought I'd be using that word here) secretions from the hypobranchial (or that one) glands of certain predatory sea snails gathered from the Mediterranean Sea. The Spiny Dye Murex. Why am I so focused on purple? Check out the invitation above created recently for a very special boy who requested purple during our very first meeting. He was quite sure of his choice and I think the collaboration was a royal success.




Twig & Fig letterpress invite. Bronze folder.
Ancient Phoenicians lived along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean; today's Syria and Lebanon.
Tyrian purple is probably closer to magenta than the purple shown here.

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