They aren’t. Nice bit of local history for Americans though!
Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
61–70 of 117 posts
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#62Growing up in India, all the pencils I used were red and black striped made by Nataraj. I remember seeing yellow pencils in western movies though. https://cwpencils.com/collections/nataraj/products/621-hb-pe...
Probably the most common colour in New Zealand is that red and black stripe as well, but usually made by Staedtler[0]. Some other brands also copy the same style[1].
Seems like we need another article on Why Pencils Are Red And Black.
[0] https://i.imgur.com/AMbEQzT.jpg
[1] e.g. https://i.imgur.com/mmN943m.jpg
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#63So the story is, as it is for nearly every physical artifact in my life, "Because people are easily lured by bright objects and catchy marketing into associating quality with anything but the quality of the goods." I'm reminded of User Testing at Powerset. When we did unbranded search testing of Wikipedia, late-stage Powerset usually won most search comparisons by users. But if we branded the search results against G…
I thought this story was going in a different direction, where you had replaced Powerset's logo with one having bright colors, and then it started winning.
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#64So the story is, as it is for nearly every physical artifact in my life, "Because people are easily lured by bright objects and catchy marketing into associating quality with anything but the quality of the goods." I'm reminded of User Testing at Powerset. When we did unbranded search testing of Wikipedia, late-stage Powerset usually won most search comparisons by users. But if we branded the search results against G…
This reminds me of a post on HN where someone put a picture of a Duck on a wireless charger, giving it a brand identity and the charger was selling like crazy. Users identified with that brand over a charger that was brandless.
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#65... except when they aren't.
This reminds me of the famous "why manhole covers are round" question. They aren't, as a quick look at the Wikipedia page can confirm:
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#66In my mind, Faber-Castell will forever be the ultimate pencil. I think yellow pencils are a staple of American culture but in my mind pencils are green... http://www.fabercastell.com/products/pencils/GraphitepencilC...
I suppose it's quite easy to monopolise the visual imagination of one child. I picture pencils as black, because someone once gave me a nice mixed tin of Caran d'Ache pencils which were all matte black, and I used them endlessly to do drawings of 16x16 sprites and 8x8 fonts on graph paper.
MSX? Spectravideo? Which other system used 16x16 sprites? :-)
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#67Growing up in India, all the pencils I used were red and black striped made by Nataraj. I remember seeing yellow pencils in western movies though. https://cwpencils.com/collections/nataraj/products/621-hb-pe...
Grown up in China and most popular pencils were coded in dark green made by Zhonghua.
https://img3.doubanio.com/lpic/s9122591.jpg
Yellow ones are rare there.
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#68Growing up in India, all the pencils I used were red and black striped made by Nataraj. I remember seeing yellow pencils in western movies though. https://cwpencils.com/collections/nataraj/products/621-hb-pe...
Here in Brazil growing up most of them were green, with the occasional cartoon character-branded pencil in the mix.
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#69So the story is, as it is for nearly every physical artifact in my life, "Because people are easily lured by bright objects and catchy marketing into associating quality with anything but the quality of the goods." I'm reminded of User Testing at Powerset. When we did unbranded search testing of Wikipedia, late-stage Powerset usually won most search comparisons by users. But if we branded the search results against G…
I was honestly expecting a story similar to why barns are red.
Re: Why Pencils Are Yellow (2017)
#70Growing up in India, all the pencils I used were red and black striped made by Nataraj. I remember seeing yellow pencils in western movies though. https://cwpencils.com/collections/nataraj/products/621-hb-pe...
I live in the UK and always since I can remember (27yrs) pencils have always been red or the red/yellow and black striped ones. In fact the only yellow ones I remeber seeing have always been the packs of very cheap poor quality ones.