Your zip began as a shoe fastener that barely worked
Whitcomb Judson's 1893 clasp locker jammed and flopped. Gideon Sundback's scoops, a navy money belt and a rubber boot made it the zip.
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#design-history.
Every story tagged #design-history.
The Michelin Man began as a pile of tyres and a champagne toast
Bibendum, the Michelin Man, was first drawn in 1898 after a stack of tyres caught a Michelin brother's eye. He began as a cigar-chomping drinker.
Your PlayStation pad's circle means yes. Teiyu Goto chose it
Teiyu Goto gave the 1994 PlayStation pad grips and four symbols. The triangle meant viewpoint, the square a menu, and the circle and X yes and no.
A German school ran 14 years and reshaped modern design
The Bauhaus lasted from 1919 until the Nazis shut it in 1933, yet its white walls, steel chairs and factory-made lamps still set what modern looks like.
A design student sketched Nike's swoosh for $35
Carolyn Davidson billed Nike $2 an hour for 17.5 hours of work on its new logo in 1971. Phil Knight's first reaction was that he didn't love it.
A student designed the recycling symbol for $2,500
Gary Anderson was 23 when he won a 1970 contest to design a recycling logo. The EPA now says his arrows mislead on plastics that are hard to recycle.
Researchers say QWERTY came from telegraphy, not jams
The usual story says QWERTY stopped typebars jamming. A 2011 Kyoto University paper traces the layout to the needs of telegraph operators.
How lost-wax casting turns a wax copy into a bronze sculpture
Wax is buried in a mould, melted out and replaced with molten bronze. The method runs from Benin's royal casters to Leonardo's unfinished horse.
Max Miedinger drew Helvetica in 1957 as Neue Haas Grotesk
Max Miedinger drew a sans serif for a Swiss foundry in 1957. Stempel renamed it Helvetica when it licensed the design for Linotype in 1961.
Henry Cole sold the first printed Christmas card in 1843
In 1843, a busy London civil servant had no time to write to family and friends, so he commissioned an artist to design a card instead.
Ecuador's Panama hat took its name from where it was sold
The Panama hat is woven in Ecuador. It took the name of the place it was sold and shipped through, and a 1906 photo of Theodore Roosevelt made it stick.