Cinnabar is the red of Chinese seals.

Cinnabar is the red of Chinese seals.

For three thousand years, everything that mattered in China — contracts, paintings, a painter's own signature — was certified the same way: pressed in cinnabar paste. The red that says *this is real*.

We started Cinnabar Ink because the same thing kept happening: people getting Chinese characters inked that meant nothing — or the wrong thing — forever. Meanwhile, China holds 2,500 years of documented tattoo history that almost nobody tells right. Punishment marks and soldiers' oaths. Outlaws whose dragons were their résumé. A court lady who turned a tattooed face into the fashion of an age.

So we design the way a seal certifies. Every design is traced to something real — a museum artifact, a classical text, a recorded practice — and carries its sources. Every character is chosen and checked stroke by stroke by native readers of Chinese; the art is drawn by machines, the words never are. And every design comes with its story told properly: who wore it, what it meant, and why it still holds.

Designs with provenance. Characters that mean exactly what they say. A history you can wear — and, we hope, pass on.

Sourcing and rights

Every design is original artwork. Form research draws on the documented motifs and design traditions of classical Chinese art and historical sources — we study the form tradition itself, not any single artifact. Each card carries its form references.

• ·Designs: original artwork; no copyrighted material is copied
• ·Display type: Noto Serif SC (open source), SIL OFL 1.1