The pencil
a history of design and circumstance
by Henry Petroski · first published 1989
10mentions
9recommended by
10HN commenters
2008–2026first – last mentioned
90% recommend10% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces how the pencil was designed and refined over time, showing how design emerges from practical circumstances and small improvements; recommended for engineers and anyone curious about everyday objects.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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That is an excellent essay, probably why the "artist" used a pencil in the first place. And Henry Petroski did a whole book on the evolution of the design of the pencil in the early 1990s: http://www.amazon.com/Pencil-History-Design-Circumstance/dp/...
on “Peak Globalization” ↗…visual part, and make their product look just like other products that they think are well designed. If you want a good counter-example, about good design that is very subtle and runs very deep, read "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance" by Henry Petroski.
on “Design is Horseshit” ↗Henry Petroski's excellent book The Pencil[1] uses the same subject to explore the history of the pencil's development into the common artifact we know today. [1]http://www.amazon.com/The-Pencil-History-Design-Circumstance...
on “I, Pencil (1958)” ↗Related: "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance". My favorite passage mentions Henry David Thoreau, who was a pencil maker by trade. Thoreau seemed to think of everything when he made a list of essential…
on “Making a pencil from scratch (2013)” ↗Single Page link: http://spectrum.ieee.org/print/6354 The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance - Henry Petroski (Knopf, 1989) Mirror Worlds; or, The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox…How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean - David Gelernter (Oxford…
on “10 Great Tech Books” ↗Next time you are browsing in a technical bookstore, I recommend Henry Petroski's tome on engineering w.r.t pencils: "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance". I couldn't get through the entire book but its exhaustively researched.
on “Where is the pencil czar?” ↗I've never read this book but of course now I have to. I'll suggest reading Henry Petroski's stuff, too. "The Evolution of Useful Things", "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance", and "To Engineer is Human" all make the case that the design of things around us are shaped less by insight and more by evolution, incrementally building on the…
on “New Course: The Design of Everyday Things” ↗All of Henry Petroski's books are good. A couple that I'm particularly fond of are The Pencil and The Book on the Bookcase.
on “Structural engineers are unsung heroes” ↗I think it's still a useful category, but we need to be careful with it, because "tech" is a moving target that only includes what's novel. As an example, pencils are an excellent technology for writing. (Petroski's "The Pencil" and "The Evolution of Useful Things" are great reads on how much innovation it takes to make something mundane.) But Faber-Castell is…
on “Netflix is not a tech company (2019)” ↗Manufacturing is hard, even for something “simple” like a pencil: https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-History-Design-Circumstance/dp... Those big machines have lots of little parts and if you have to wait three years to get a spare part that’s a big problem. (Never mind…
on “Where did all the starships go?” ↗