The emerging markets for color ink jet printing have many new and specific requirements for ink jet inks. Today's inks were initially designed for the home and desktop market, or the addressing and labeling industrial market. Market requirements for new, emerging applications, often include both the quality of the desktop market and the durability of the industrial market, while adding highly specific needs for the application.While highlighting these needs, this paper emphasizes the wide range of technical paths ink formulation is taking to fulfill these needs, from controlled colorant solubility, new ink solvents, radiation curing, and new colorants. Some of these formulation approaches are general and are able to impact several applications while others are specificsubstrate driven.Ink formulations are rapidly evolving to fulfill the multiple challenges of the emerging markets such as packaging, large format, textiles and decorative coverings. Further tailoring of chemistries to optimize ink ingredients for these new applications is needed, offering major opportunities for imaging chemical vendors.