Dominant Industry Keyno Stay.tionery Fountain Pen Review

I’m always skeptical when a company known for its fountain pen inks decides to make the jump into fountain pens, but credit to Dominant Industry, who I think has done a nice job with their Keyno Stay.tionery Fountain Pen series.

Launched earlier this year, there have been two Keyno Stay.tionery releases so far, the first being No. 014 Cherishment, and the second named No. 001 Serenity, which is the model I am reviewing. Dominant Industry is looking to expand their storytelling beyond their inks, paper, and accessories with these pens. What story, exactly? From their marketing:

“Born from Dominant Industry in 2026, this fountain pen brand aspires to create writing instruments in harmony with beautiful inks. Their story starts at Hotel Keyno, a secluded retreat perched in the mountains of a faraway peaceful island. Each release is created with a a hotel visit in mind through each "key number" assigned to a pen. With a refined touch and balanced weight, each piece delivers an indulgent writing experience. Their pens are fitted with an ebonite feed for a rich and seamless ink flow. Rooted in story-driven design and detail, their fountain pens aim to inspire and nurture creativity.”

I’m the first to roll my eyes at marketing out of thin air like this, and even held off on the Cherishment release despite finding the pen nice looking. I just didn’t feel the overly Instagrammable style of the pen was something I would use regularly.

The second release, aptly named 001, hooked me for two reasons. One, the barrel color landed a bit better for me personally, and two, the short timeframe from when the second pen released in relation to the first. Why does that second detail matter to me? It told me that this pen concept wasn’t going away soon, so I may as well test it out and share my thoughts. Best case, I have a fun pen to add to the rotation. Worst case, I give it away to one of you tomorrow.

Spoiler: This is not tomorrow’s giveaway.

Let’s get aesthetics out of the way first, because I think that will be the biggest contention with Keyno Stay.tionery products. I love fun, pretty, colorful, and stylish products, all of which I think are good descriptors for this fountain pen. There is a balance, though, and the 001 Serenity gets right up to that edge for me. On one hand, this pen is on the same style family tree as Pelikan’s popular color editions. You know, the ones with the White caps, Gold trim, and colorful barrels? You can find them in various Pelikan sizes, and I do see a little bit of that in Serenity.

Upon closer look, Dominant Industry turned that classic style into something more. The details on the clip, clip band, both finials, cap ring, and nib etching show that they wanted to maximize the style of this pen to fit in with their storytelling vision. Keys and key holes everywhere! Overall, it is themed well, but is not for everyone.

What might be for everyone with this pen is the nib. I say might, because I ordered mine with an Extra Fine nib (Fine and Medium are the other options, all Steel,) and haven’t tried the others. Visually speaking there is not a lot of tipping on this nib, which got me excited for fine lines. It delivered.

This nib is so good, and was from the first touch on the page. I inked it up with Wearingeul The Blue Castle, and have used it across many paper types. It has been solid, smooth, and controllable. For a “who knows who makes this,” nib, it is perfect. Bonus, it has an ebonite feed, which helps with ink flow and consistency. It hasn’t skipped a beat from first inking.

So, who is the Keyno Stay.tionery No. 001 Serenity for? You have to love the aesthetic that Dominant Industry is going for here to even consider it. It’s $115, which seems fair, especially given the performance I’m getting from the nib. The more I use it, the more I like it. Will I need the entire series of Keyno Stay.tionery fountain pens? No, but I do have a hotel room key that needs investigating, so who knows where this will lead.

(This product was purchased from Dromgoole’s at a discounted price.)

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Dominant Industry Takasago Ink Swatch Paper Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

As if I needed more ways to swatch my inks, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try the swatch paper from Dominant Industry. The Dominant Industry Takasago Ink Swatch Paper measures 2” x 3.5” or 50 x 90 mm and comes in 3 designs of 40 cards each, packaged in a small cardboard case. Note that the packaging doesn’t say “swatch cards”, that’s just what I’m calling them in this review.

Box of Dominant Industry Takasago Paper ink swatch cards.

This is the Tea Time set - with 3 different designs.

Each one has a teacup image on the upper left, designs of writing tips on the bottom left (fountain pen, dip pen, glass dip pen, marker or pencil - not sure what the fourth one is, to be honest), space for Brand and Ink names, and a bar with 4 segments to color in as you see fit.

Testing notes:

• I used the Stainless Steel Kakimori dip nib in my trusty Kaweco clutch pencil holder to make the swatches and writing samples.
• I used the DI swatch cards and Col-o-Ring cards (my go-to for swatch cards) for comparison.
• I did not rinse the nibs while swatching the same ink on different cards/paper. I definitely rinsed after I was done swatching each color.
• For the bottom right bar, I swatched from left to right to fill the whole space, then dabbed extra ink on the second half of the bar to make it darker.

I started out staying on brand and swatching some Dominant Industry inks.

DI Tanzanite (top) and Pen Chalet exclusive Desert Eclipse. Both are very similar dark purples with a bit of copper sheen, with Tanzanite being a touch darker. DI swatches are similar to Col-o-Ring.

You can see that the DI cards also show some of the copper sheen.

Two more DI x Pen Chalet inks: Arizona Sky Crimson (top) and Arizona Sky Citrus. (bottom) Both DI cards are similar to Col-o-Ring.

The cards are made from Takasago 87.9 gsm paper which happens to be the same weight as #5 in the Yamamoto Fountain Pen Friendly Paper Collection Vol. 7, but I can’t tell if they are exactly the same or not. The paper is very smooth to write/swatch on, and while it’s very thin, there was minimal ghosting and zero bleedthrough.

I wanted to make sure that the DI cards also worked well with other inks, so I swatched a few other brands too.

Lamy Sepia (top) and Colorverse x Lucky Star Pens Stellaris (bottom) - Both matched the Col-o-Ring. Sepia is a “straightforward” red-brown ink with a little bit of shading, while Stellaris has copper/rose gold shimmer, which showed up in both swatches. It also shows the turquoise outlines in the darker parts of the swatch.

I can go on with the various inks that matched the swatches on the Col-o-Ring, but what fun is that? There were other inks where the swatches were similar but a little bit off. Here are some examples:

Dominant Industry Les Nympheas Matin (top) and Duftrausch (bottom) Nympheas is pretty similar on both the Col-o-Ring and the DI card, with the card showing a touch more purple, and the Dufrauch showing more pink on the Col-o-Ring vs a little more grey on the DI card.

This isn’t as easy to see in the pictures, but Anderillium Pompadour Cotinga Burgundy (top) is browner on the DI card than Col-o-Ring (which had some water drops resulting in bright pink spots). On the bottom, Anderillium Roseate Spoonbill Pink is a lighter pink in both the DI writing sample and the swatch. Only when I went over the same part of the bar multiple times, was the pink as dark as the Col-o-Ring writing or swatch.

Then there were some swatches that had me questioning whether I swatched the right ink or wrote down the right name and yes, I double-checked and it was not a mistake.

Anderillium Purple Gallinule Purple (top) is practically blue on the DI swatch card, while being somewhere between blurple and purple on the Col-o-Ring. You can also see some of the purple peeking out on the DI swatch card. The Van Diemena’s Sacagawea is a gorgeous dusty blue/teal/purple chromashader with a bit of shimmer on the Col-o-Ring card but is a mint green with a hint of light pink/grey.

Lest you think this must be a chromashading issue, there were no problems with these two chromashaders that I happened to swatch today either. There were also no problems with other inks from those brands.

Wearingeul Enki (top) on Col-o-ring, Wearingeul Instant Film Color Swatch card and DI card - you can see the subtle purple shading on all 3 of these swatch cards. Ditto for this gorgeous chromashader Mung Shing by Hosia Ink Studio.

I swatched 22 inks on the DI and Col-o-ring cards and really only had 2 inks look drastically different on the DI card, and maybe 4 that were a little different. Needless to say, as with any paper and ink combo, your mileage may vary with some inks swatching the same on the DI cards as other cards/paper. I won’t bore you with additional photos, but I compared my Col-o-Ring swatches to swatches done in my Hobonichi Weeks (52 gsm Tomoe River paper) and Endless Recorder (68 gsm TR) and they were what I expected, so it was really the DI Takasago paper for a few of these inks that was the differentiator.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a thinner paper so I don’t think it would hold up as well to the constant flipping that I subject my Col-o-Ring cards to. I would definitely put them in a binder to protect them.

A pack of 120 sheets of the Dominant Industry Takasago Ink Swatch Paper retails for $13.00, but you can often find it for less. It is a cute way to swatch your inks as long as you are aware that some inks might look different on other papers.

(Disclaimer: The Dominant Industry Takasago Ink Swatch Papers were purchased at a discount from sponsor Pen Chalet. Lamy Sepia and Anderillium inks were from past reviews. All other inks (including the DI inks) and Col-o-Ring are my own.)

Dominant Industry Ink Muddler Review

(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)

As you may recall, I have a love/hate affair with ink swatching. It’s one of those activities that I desperately need to do because I am so behind in swatching. Once I get started though, it ends up being a relaxing activity that I enjoy and I like discovering what inks are exciting me even if they are “old” bottles/samples that I’m finally getting around to swatching. As such, I like to try all the different tools out there for swatching inks, so up for today is the Dominant Industry Ink Muddler.

The Dominant Industry Ink Muddler comes in a simple box labeled “Ink Muddler” and the tagline “For Glitter Fountain Pen Ink”. A bit of kraft-like paper and a strip of washi tape protects the Muddler in the box.

The Muddler has a small column of pliable clear plastic (silicone, perhaps?) that protects the glass tip.

On one end of the Muddler is a spiral glass tip, as is common with most glass dip nibs. On the other end, I expected a round ball of glass, but instead, the DI Ink Muddler is more of a flattened glass disc.

The Muddler’s glass tip.

The flat side of the Muddler.

Rotate the Muddler 90 degrees and you’ll see that this end isn’t a round ball of glass but it’s flat.

The Muddler wrote right out of the box, with no issues (looking at you, Drillog and Kakimori brass dip nibs). It does take a little practice to figure out how many “drags” across the bottle top to make sure you don’t get too much/little ink. I had to remember to be more careful than usual, since I’ve been using the Kakimori steel dip nib for the past couple of years.

I probably could have used another drag across the bottle top since this first bit of writing is a bit saturated.

Using the muddling end to make an ink swatch. Pretty straight forward for this kind of swatching.

It’s a little difficult to be precise with the Muddler. The glass distorts what you see, so you can’t really tell where the ink meets the paper. As such, I couldn’t quite get my lines to be on the dots like I can with the Kakimori.

I had a little more trouble making these swatches in my Endless Recorder, dot-grid notebook, especially since you can’t really control how much ink gets laid down. You can see how much ink got dumped at the beginning of that lower line.

With practice, it became easier to figure out how much ink you can put on the Muddler end so it wasn’t too inky. (The above swatches were my first attempts using the Muddler).

Aside from the first entry, where I used the Kakimori steel dip nib as usual, the remainder of the swatches and writing samples were done with the Muddler. The squiggly swatch lines could sometimes be done in one dip, and sometimes 2-3. (Part of that depends on how wet/dry/sticky/watery the ink is, as well as how much I may have gotten in a dip.)

I had no issues using either the writing end or the muddling end with a variety of inks, including shimmer, sheening, saturated, or shading inks. Aside from the Dominant Industry inks in the above photo, I also swatched a few other random ink from other brands with no issues either. (There was really nothing interesting to report, so no photos.)

The Muddler is little, and that’s saying a lot coming from someone who doesn’t post their Kaweco Sports. It’s also very slim.

Here are some other items to compare against: Tennessee Red wood pencil, Schmidt K5 converter, Ink Muddler, uncapped and unposted Kaweco AL Sport, Kakimori steel dip nib in Kaweco clutch lead holder, Sailor Hocoro dip pen/nib.

I kid you not when I say that the Ink Muddler isn’t much bigger than a standard international converter. It is similar in girth (except for the Muddler end, of course). Even the pencil is girthier than the Muddler. If you have larger hands or a lot of swatching to do, the Muddler might be uncomfortable if you don’t like slim and short writing implements.

One of the things I both liked and disliked about the Ink Muddler is that it is two tools in one. I liked it because it meant I had a writing end and a swatching end (or ink mixing end). But I also disliked it because I have to rinse and flip between writing and swatching. I have a multi-step process for swatching (2 Col-o-Ring cards, swatch and writing sample in the Endless Recorder and more recently, in the Hobonichi weeks too). This meant that I had to do all of my writing on different cards/papers, clean the dip nib, flip it around, and then do all the swatching. This would be an improvement over the old days when I used to use a glass dip nib for writing samples and a separate tool (the non-brush end of a cheap paint brush) for the swatching. But now that I’ve switched to the Kakimori in the Kaweco clutch lead holder, I already have a tool that does both.

The other thing about this all-in-one tool is that the dip nib is much more susceptible to getting damaged. This is partly because (1) glass dip nibs are fragile in general (certainly more so than a metal dip nib), (2) being on the same piece of glass as the muddling end means that you have to flip it around to use the other end and therefore, more chances to knock it into things, and (3) the shortness of it means the tip is sticking out when you’re using the muddling end (again, higher likelihood of accidentally hitting something). Or worse, it’s poking you in the hand if you have larger hands.

Thought I’d try to mix up the shimmer in this Dominant Industry Tanzanite, but as you can see, I’d have to grip it by the nib end in order to reach the bottom of the bottle.

Since I already have a swatch/writing sample tool that I really like, the Dominant Industry Ink Muddler wouldn’t be my top choice, but I do prefer it over other “traditional” dip nibs that are only meant for writing samples. I would like this a lot more if it was longer (at least by another inch or so) and a little girthier. I’m not sure if It would make a huge difference for me if the muddler end was a round ball of glass or not. Given its small size and fragile nature, it would be nice if it came with something more protective than paper and a box - I have to wrap it and put it back in the box when I’m not using it because there’s nothing to protect it otherwise. I don’t trust that it wouldn’t break in a pen sleeve in my pen bag.

The Dominant Industry Ink Muddler retails for $12, which is pretty affordable. You can find it at Pen Chalet.

(Disclaimer: The Dominant Industry Ink Muddler was purchased from Pen Chalet at a discount. All other products, including the Pen Chalet exclusive Dominant Industry inks were purchased by me over the years.)

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