lightfastness of ink

I’d be interested to do some research on this. At my work, we do a lot of printing with inkjet and solvent printers, and especially for the solvent ink the magenta and yellow are not guaranteed to last more than a year or two outdoors before fading. I’m sure it has to do with the pigments in various inks but I had not encountered fading with litho/offset inks. Any ink mixers out there with answers?

I should mention that the print on my wall was printed (I think) with Van Son rubber-based ink. It was a gift from a friend. Other prints hanging in the same area seem like they haven’t faded, at least not as much, but I don’t have ‘controls’ to compare them to. I’m tempted to do some tests as well – let’s compare our results!

From working with dyes and pigments I know that most reds/magentas are very fugitive…they’ll fade well before any other colours. It also makes a difference what quality and density of pigment is used in the ink/dye. I use Van Son rubber based as well and I get direct sunlight into my studio all afternoon and stuff I’ve printed that has any red ink mixed in with another colour usually fades within a year. The red pigment fades and I’m left with the mix of the other colours showing instead. I don’t think Van Son ruber-based was really created considering art based longevity. After all, the ideal paper to print on with is a nice smooth coated stock. Its’ more of an industrial ink.

Perhaps an oil based ink fare better?

I found a good discussion here – http://www.briarpress.org/17461.

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