You’ve probably heard the expression “the greatest thing since sliced bread” – right? Everybody has this wrong, it should be “the greatest thing since Crayola crayons”.
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There are few things as entrenched in the experience of being a child as much as crayons – specifically Crayola brand crayons. To say we have a lot of crayons in our house is an understatement; I still draw and “render” almost daily (FYI – architects don’t “color” once we receive our license), my wife Michelle has a position of prominence with Michaels (only the greatest craft store in existence) and I have a 6 year (you all know who she is – Kate, the cultural prodigy). I am sure we have thousands of Crayola brand crayons in our house – thin ones, thick, thin, broken, lightly used, short and nubby. We have 8 packs, 32 packs, 64 packs (with the sharpener built into the case) and the almighty 120 box. Yes, there are 120 core colors available, although over their history, 12 colors have been retired to make way for new colors, and several have been renamed. Remember “Indian Red”? In 1999 is was renamed to “Chestnut”.
The time spent working with all these crayons isn’t limited to my daughter. There are times when we all sit down in front of coloring books and just go to town. I might be the only person who has recently “rendered” a picture of Scooby Doo and the Gang in front of the Mystery Time Machine van … but I doubt it. Something tells me that there are Mom’s and Dad’s, architect’s and artist’s everywhere that have moved beyond puberty but still love their crayons.
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I thought that I would spend my lunch hour looking up information on Crayola crayons to quench my thirst for knowledge … that and I have to stop going out to lunch all the time. On the Crayola Crayons website, there is a timeline of interesting and notable events – I have culled through it and pulled off bits of their history:
• In 1903, noticing a need for safe, quality, affordable wax crayons, the company produces the first box of eight Crayola crayons, selling for a nickel. The Crayola name, coined by Edwin Binney’s wife Alice, comes from “craie,” the French word for chalk, and “ola,” from “oleaginous.”
• In 1958, the 64-color assortment of Crayola crayons – with the built in sharpener – debuts. Binney & Smith takes 100 percent ownership of the Cosmic Crayon Company in England and Canada.
• In 1984, Binney & Smith becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., the world leader in social expression.
• In 1990, Eight traditional crayon colors retire to the “Crayola Hall of Fame.”
• 1996, A colorful and historic milestone is recorded as the 100 billionth Crayola crayon rolls off the production line in Easton, Pa.
• 1999, To help alleviate consumer confusion, the company announces it will change the name of indian red. This is only the third time that the company has changed a crayon color name; prussian blue was changed to midnight blue, and flesh was changed to peach.
• 2000, Also in 2000, more than 25,000 Crayola fans recorded their color preferences in the first-ever online Crayola Color Census. The favorite? Blue.
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Fun Facts about crayons
By the age of 10 the average child will use up about 730 crayons. That adds up to about 11 boxes of 64 crayons.
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Crayola crayons get their names from a U.S. Commerce Department’s National Bureau of Standards book called “Color: Universal Language and Dictionary Names.” Many crayon names are also borrowed from traditional artists’ paints.
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25,000 crayon users voted on their favorite colors and the number one favorite color is blue. In fact there were 7 shades in the top 10 favorite colors. Some other colors in the top 10 were purple heart, Caribbean green, and cerise.
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Crayola crayons and art products are sold in more than 80 countries around the world. They are packaged in 12 different languages: English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Japanese, Swedish and Norwegian.
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According to a study completed by Yale University, the scent of crayon is in the 20 most recognizable to American adults. Coffee and peanut butter are in spots number 1 and 2. Crayola crayons are number 18 on the list.
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During the Great Depression, Binney and Smith hired local farm families to hand-label crayons. Over time, each farm became associated with a different color name.
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In 1996, ninety-three years after the first crayon was made, the 100 billionth Crayola crayon came off the production line at Binney and Smith world headquarters in Easton, Pennsylvania.
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Red and blue are kids’ two favorite colors of crayons.
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Paraffin wax has to be heated to 240 degrees Fahrenheit to start the process.
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Who here remembers making crayon candles and crayon pucks? Melting crayons into a Styrofoam cup to make a candle?
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What about working with the Crayola colors? Somebody named Aaron at ColorSchemer.com created a list of all 120 Crayon Colors with their hex codes and RGB values. This is just a partial of the entire list but it’s still pretty sweet. You can also find all these codes on Wikipedia.
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During my lunchtime exploring, I found some pretty interesting grown-up images of crayons as well:
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Christian Faur is an artist based in Granville, Ohio and I stumbled upon his site when I was conducting “research” on crayons. I found this quote:
Looking for a new technique, he experimented with painting with wax, but he didn’t feel the results were satisfactory. Then, at Christmas in 2005, his young daughter opened a box of 120 Crayola crayons he’d bought her, and everything clicked into place…
“My earliest memories of making art involve the use of wax crayons. I can still remember the pleasure of opening a new box of crayons: the distinct smell of the wax, the beautifully colored tips, everything still perfect and unused. Using the first crayon from a new box always gave me a slight pain. Through a novel technique that I have developed, I again find myself working with the familiar form of the crayon.”
The pieces above are actually made with hand cast encaustic crayons (c’mon, he is an artist after all, control over the media is important). A visit by his website is worth your time for many reasons, there is more to his work than what I am showing here.
I can appreciate that the ease at which I have access to crayons might have extended my admiration for the product. Despite the fact that I do have them laying about everywhere, I use them for more than just coloring rendering Spongebob Squarepants. I use them when I am checking construction drawings instead of highlighters; a little Cornflower Blue for HVAC, maybe Goldenrod for hardware sets … I might even go crazy and use Vivid Violet for … something. As long as it is Crayola brand and not some sucky knockoff brand – I hate the knockoff brands, everybody hates the knockoff brands. I would think it a safe wager that if you asked 10 architects to name one color of crayon, 7 would say “Goldenrod”.
Am I right?
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