Letraset Flexmarker and Triamarker

Some facts:

In the year of 2015 Letraset announced that they would discontinue the line of Flexmarker and tria marker. Promarker rebranded to Winsor and Newton.  

• Earlier called Pantone triamarker
• produced promarker, Flexmarker and triamarker
• Triamarker has three nibs,(an ultrafine or a bullet nib, a brushnib and a chisel nib) Promarker had the option of three nibs ( a chisel nib and a bullet bis and a ultrafine nib as a option) and Flexmarker had two nibs (a brush nib and a chisel nib).   
• Letraset was founded in London 1959

Left: Triamarker, middle: Flexmarker and last Promarker

Metallic marker, ink and cartridges  

Letrasets case 

The older Tria Pantone.  

When I first bought Triamarker they
had seven different nibs to choice between. 

Triamarker
and Flexmarker organiser

Color chart for the pocket

I have loved Letrasets products for so long so when it stood clear that tria- and flexmarker would be discontinued I was very sad. But I do understand a bit, because this is a marker that has their share of problems. When the new Triamarker first arrived on the market, they had problems with the cap not fitting correct and therefore the marker dried out to quick. They also used to have the worst brush nib. It was so stiff that you could not really call it a brush nib. They have however changed the brush nib at least twice seen then.

Color chart for the pocket

Old tria case

Tria set of 24

The ink however, is the best ink of all art markers in my opinion. It doesn´t become grainy but still keep the colors alive, vibrant, rich and they blend perfect. They also have a lot of skin colors, and more important the skin colors look very different from each other. Among the skin colors you will find a more greyish skin color that actually looks closer to a Scandinavian skin then the usually more yellowish skin colors (which they also have). 

Now some of the colors lives on in Winsor and Newton promarker and Brushmarker (and it is the same quality ink), but a lot of wonderful colors are gone.  Here are some of the colors that I will miss the most: 

Letraset has the most complete color system (HSL) of all brands. You can see the color family (its represent by a letter), you have a number telling you the hue of the color, for an example a yellow can be draw to orange or to green, the higher the number the more green the yellow color will be and the lower the number the more orange the color will be. If the color has the number 5 (which is in the middle) it is the most pure yellow you can get. Next number will tell you how clean the color is. If it is a high number it means it is a very clear (saturated) color and if it is a low number it means it is more greyish. The last digit tells you if it is light or dark. Flexmarker also have names on their colors.

Letraset’s grey colors are a bit messy to understand. They have different names depending on what marker you choose, so if you use Flexmarker or Triamarker you have too keep that in mind. But if you look closely on the barrel on you Flexmarker you will find a “translation” to the “Triamarker world”.

The best thing with the greys (in my opinion) is that it doesn't become to dark to soon. Only the two last numbers becomes really dark (in Triamarker system the darkest grey is called nr 1 and 2 and in Flexmarker the darkest grey is nr 5).

Drawing made with Triamarkers 

Letraset use to have a cartridge system to refill all there 300 colors and ink to refill 100 of them. They used to have 300 colors to choose between (and even more if you counted flexmarkers and promarker colors that wasn´t included in the tria system). They also use to have a lot of different replacement nibs.

Drawing made with Triamarker 

Cat drawn with Triamarker 
on Letrasets paper 

Drawing