History Archive

Post It History

By Sian Prescott, October 31, 2009, 10:12 am in Design, History, Past

In our seemingly digital driven modern world, it is often said paper is dead. Yet one paper product challenges this thinking: the humble Post It. A simple, yet distinctive design, the Post It is instantly recognisable and remains essential office/home stationery, as well as appearing in the art world amongst art works and installations.

In 1968 Spencer Silver, a scientist working at the adhesive 3M company laboratory, stumbled upon a glue that had such an unique pressure sensitive consistency, it was re-useable. It crucially also did not leave a residue. Silver saw the great possibilities in this accidental discovery, yet was unsuccessful in persuading 3M to persue its possible capabilities into an actual product.

Spencer Silver

Spencer Silver

Six years later, Art Fry, another scientist/product inventor at 3M, was attending church when he became increasingly frustrated at losing his place in his hymn books. His bookmarks were falling out of the pages. Suddenly, he had a divine intervention. What if the bookmarks were stuck to the page, with a light, re-useable adhesive that would not damage the page? He was already aware of Silver’s creation, but had suddenly envisioned the perfect niche to maximise its potential.

Art Fry

Art Fry

Together, Spencer Silver and Art Fry returned to 3M and developed the product. The Post It was finally launched in 1977. As soon as test samples were sent out, the Post It stuck to people’s consciousness. By 1980, Post Its were being sold across the USA, and by 1981, across the world.

The Post It is born

The Post It is born

There are now over 600 different post it products, illustrating their success and popularity. Practically every office or home has a Post It or two lurking on a desk or on a fridge door. They are perfect for jotting down things ‘to do’ or a telephone number, or a shopping list.

Yet I find the Post It is perfect for drawing ideas and drawings; quick sketches whilst I am waiting for the computer to load or for the kettle to boil. They are light and small to carry, their design making them perfectly portable, and the adhesive, of course, makes them wonderfully versatile. The Post It is ideal for doodling, a personal canvas that you can hang up on display anywhere, any time.

todo

In its short history, the sticky yellow label has gone a long way. A simple design, a huge effect. From a laboratory in Minnesota, via a church hymn book, to art galleries/offices/homes/internet videos across the world, the Post It proves paper media still has a special space in our lives. And if it falls off that space, it can quickly be re-attached.

Doodles by Sian

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The Architect Who Designed the Telephone Box

By Dan Zambonini, October 30, 2009, 1:22 pm in Architecture, Design, History, Past

Cambridge University Library and a Red Telephone Box

Giles Gilbert Scott (1880 – 1960) was a prolific architect, responsible for landmarks that include the Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, Waterloo Bridge and Bankside Power Station (now Tate Modern).

Ironically, of all these cavernous structures, his most visited design only houses one person at a time: the classic British red telephone box.

In 1924, a competition was held to re-design the concrete K1 telephone box, which many London boroughs had refused to install. Scott won the competition (against two other architects), though the Post Office chose the distinctive red colour over his suggestion of silver.

Today, most of these ‘K2′ telephone boxes have been designated Grade II listed building status.

Photograph of Cambridge University Library (left) and Red Telephone Box (right) – both Giles Gilbert Scott designs – courtesy of Wikipedia.

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Dark Keepsakes – Heads and Hearts

By Amy Thibodeau, October 27, 2009, 9:21 am in Collectables, History, Past

heart

It isn’t uncommon for people to hold on to keepsakes from loved ones who have passed away in order to remember and feel close to them. Some cultures, take this idea a step further by literally keeping pieces of the deceased:

In some cultures, the physical remains of a loved one is intended to comfort the bereaved. New Zealanders embalmed the heads of family members by removing the brains, stuffing the cavities with flowers, baking them in the oven and drying them out in the sun. The relics were kept in baskets, scented with oil, and brought out on special occasions during which their relatives would cry over them. (source)

There are some fairly mainstream examples of this kind of keeping of the dead, from some unexpected places. When Mary Shelley died, the heart of her deceased husband Percy Bysshe Shelley was found in her desk wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He died nearly thirty years before her. Sir Walter Raleigh‘s widow had his head embalmed after his execution, which she kept until her own death many years later.

Though there are different motivations behind it, more recently, the preservation of human bodies has seen a resurgence in traveling exhibitions like Body Worlds, which showcases human bodies stripped of their skin and preserved using a process called plastination. Another exhibition called Bodies infers something darker about the origins of some of these corpses. The exhibition contains “21 preserved human cadavers, along with 250 organs and partial-body specimens,” all of which are Chinese homeless citizens who, sadly, had no one to claim or bury them after they died.

If anything is macabre about our ongoing history with the dead, it must be this more recent disregard for the nameless, unloved and unclaimed rather than the desire of earlier people to keep their dear ones close.

Bleeding Hollow Heart by Skesis.

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Joseph Hudson: Inventor of the Police and Referee Whistles

By Dan Zambonini, October 24, 2009, 9:10 pm in Design, History, Past

Metropolitan Police Whistle

Joseph Hudson set up a whistle factory in Birmingham, England in 1870. Around 1878, his Acme whistles were the first to replace the handkerchiefs and sticks of football referees.

In 1883 the Home Secretary invited competition from companies to replace the hand rattle that the London Metropolitan Police of the time relied on. Joseph Hudson, basing a new whistle on the sound he had heard when a violin broke from a fall, was awarded the contract for over 7,000 whistles. During testing on Clapham Common, the sound of the whistle was heard over a mile away.

In 1884, the company continued their whistle revolution, inventing the first reliable pea-whistle, the Acme Thunderer, which is still the most popular whistle today and has sold in the hundreds of millions.

Police Whistle photograph by Leo Reynolds

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Animal Bath Patents

By Dan Zambonini, October 20, 2009, 10:20 pm in Design, History, Past

Animal Bath Patent Illustrations

If you want to know what was truly important to any particular generation, you could probably do a lot worse than browse the patent applications of the time.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised whilst trawling through the patents of the late 19th and early 20th Century to find a glut of animal baths. At first I found them funny, but eventually found myself enamoured with the beautiful (OK, so sometimes funny too) line drawings. Those shown above are:

What’s the best old patent you can find in the database? Can you top the wonderfully simple sex aid (sorry, “Appliance For Assisting Anatomical Organs“) from 1897?

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