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![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/9e7d27e2ec5e0d31d471f06ac90fdf2c7a585e2d\/465_1592_6056_3634\/master\/6056.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=82b26408fbd7ab1e351719019cd178d0\" "\\"My")
From a ball point pen to a skyscraper, everything we make needs one or more of these design wondersWhen I was about five years old, I was living with my parents and sister in snowy upstate New York. It was the 1980s and one day I sat in front of my favourite large rectangular lunchbox, adorned with a picture of the Muppets on the front. This one held my huge collection of crayons \u2013 long, short, thick, thin, in every shade available. Like most children, I was continuously curious and I wanted to \u201cdiscover\u201d what was inside my crayons. So I peeled off the paper that enveloped them, then held them one at a time against the sharp edge of the open box and snapped them in two. My great anticipation was rather dampened to find, well, just more crayon inside. Nevertheless I persisted.\nWhen I was a little older and started writing words on paper with pencils, I would twist them inside a sharpener to see if the grey rod that marked my sheets went all the way through its body. It did. From there, I graduated to pens \u2013 far from the disappointing crayons of my early childhood, the insides of fountain pens and ballpoints contained slender cartridges and helical springs, held together with a top that threaded, screw-like, on to the rest of the pen. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a ball point pen to a skyscraper, everything we make needs one or more of these design wonders When I was about five years old, I was living with my parents and sister in snowy upstate New York. It was the 1980s and one day I sat in front of my favourite large rectangular …<\/p>\n