This video shows how crayons are made. It’s freaking cool, h/t Geekosystem.
Not sure what it is about crayons, maybe the ubiquity in all our childhoods, maybe the simplicity and enduring utility even in the era of technically advanced drawing tools.
Whatever it is, they’re cool. This video also features some awesome machinery that does some pretty delicate tasks. Anyway, enjoy.
The engineering required to build that automated process is rather cool as well as the crayons!
Totally, the sorting machines are especially cool since they have to be gentle with the finished crayons, a weird attribute for a machine.
Newer chart iteration is pretty cool: http://www.datapointed.net/visualizations/color/crayola-crayon-chart-bow/
Some people go nuts: http://www.crayoncollecting.com/PL-1903.htm Ed Welter wrote on http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/01/crayolas-law.html :
As a crayon historian, I happen to knwo that in reality, Crayola started with 38 colors, not 8. They didn’t actually double every 28 years either. By 1910 the amount of colors had dropped. It did steadily increase leading up to WWII but dramatically dropped again down to only 24 due to sourcing issues (similar to the metal shortages among other things). That was more than half their color line before the war! I’d say in later years; particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s they doubled much faster than that.
Crayola’s data on their web site is simply a generalization of a much, much more complex color hisory. They provide it as a guide and what starts as a guide slowly becomes fact as it is passed from one writer to the next.
I know this because I have all their crayons and boxes going back to 1903 and have pieced together the real history of this segment of our society for the last 10 years now. You have to give Crayola their due, they’re as relevant today and they were back in 1903 and people are fascinated with their colors.
Wow. People collect all kinds of things, so why not crayons. I wonder what the condition of those hundred-year old crayons is. Actually, I’ll bet they age pretty well.
The internets have provided a boon for collectors, that’s for sure.
Excellent point about Crayola’s relevance, very true. They remain virtually untouched competitively too.