The Humble Pencil, The Mighty Computer
Creative people tend to romanticize their tools. We place them on pedestals as the conduits for our ideas and the enablers of our craft. Contrastingly, though, I think all creatives believe that a good tool does not make a good designer, and a good designer does not need top-of-the-line special tools. In fact, I’d say all one usually needs is a pencil and a sheet of paper. With that, one can wield the power of visual communication like a sword, a lullaby, or maybe even a stick of dynamite.
Pencils are special things to me. They are humble in materials: just a bit of wood and graphite, but when together, they represent the potential of a productive process. If you were to ask a friend to imagine a scene where someone is coming up with ideas, they would probably see a person at a desk with a waste basket beside it filled with a pile of crumpled paper. It is curious that waste is the main denotation of productivity. The bin would overflow with the ideas that weren’t good enough. Somewhere in that scene, maybe just a bit out of frame, there is a pencil scribbling wildly on paper. The more inspired one is, the faster that pencil moves. The harder one works, the shorter that pencil becomes. There are metrics in a pencil.
Newseum: Front Pages of the Atlantis Launch
Newseum documents the STS-135 Atlantis Shuttle launch as featured on the front pages of newspapers around the world. The Huntsville Times, featured above, wins hands down.
Ventured out Sunday to show some support for the Tiny Ticker’s runners in this year’s ‘London 10k’.
