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Crayola

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File:Crayola 2006 logo.png
Crayola logo 2006-present
Crayola past logo, 1994-2006

Crayola is a brand of crayons and other writing and drawing utensils, such as markers, chalk, and colored pencils manufactured by Binney & Smith, Inc. The Crayola company was one of the first to make its crayons, chalk, markers, and colored pencils as well as other writing utensils and artistry tools non-toxic.

It is primarily popular in the United States, Canada, Australia,Guatemala and the United Kingdom.

History

A girl draws with Crayola crayons in a toystore.

Crayola Crayons were invented by cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. Binney's wife Alice coined the word "Crayola" by combining the French word for chalk (craie) and the "olea" part of "oleaginous" (oily).

The first box of Binney & Smith crayons, produced in 1903, sold for a nickel and contained eight colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black. For the next 45 years the color mix and the color names remained unchanged.

In 1949, the choices increased sixfold bringing the total in the box to 48 colors; and many of the names for the new crayons were more imaginative than those used for the original eight colors The first color name change came in 1958 when the name Prussian Blue was changed to Midnight Blue in response to requests from teachers. In the same year additional crayons were added, expanding the selection to 64 colors. New colors included Copper, Plum, Lavender, Mulberry, Burnt Orange, Aquamarine and ten other colors.

In 1962, Binney & Smith chose to change the name Flesh to Peach in response to the Civil Rights Movement, since not all people are the same skin color. In 1999, the name Indian Red was changed to Chestnut because children wrongly perceived the color to be that of Native Americans, when in fact "Indian Red" had its roots in a dye from India.

In 1972 eight bright, neon crayons were added: Chartreuse, Ultra Blue, Ultra Orange, Ultra Red, Hot Magenta, Ultra Green, Ultra Pink, and Ultra Yellow.

In 1990 only the name Hot Magenta stayed and the other names were replaced by: Atomic Tangerine, Outrageous Orange, Shocking Pink, Blizzard Blue, Laser Lemon, Screamin' Green, and Wild Watermelon. Eight additional fluorescents were added: Electric Lime, Purple Pizzazz, Razzle Dazzle Rose, Unmellow Yellow, Magic Mint, Radical Red, Sunglow, and Neon Carrot.

For the first time in 1990, eight colors were retired and replaced by eight new shades. Retired colors enshrined in the Crayola Hall of Fame included: Green Blue, Orange Red, Orange Yellow, Violet Blue, Maize, Lemon Yellow, Blue Gray and Raw Umber. Colors added were Cerulean, Vivid Tangerine, Jungle Green, Fuchsia, Dandelion, Teal Blue, Royal Purple, and Wild Strawberry.

Consumers named 16 new colors in 1993, bringing the total to 96. New colors included Asparagus, Macaroni and Cheese, Razzmatazz, Timber Wolf, Cerise, Mauvelous, Robin's Egg Blue, Tropical Rain Forest, Denim, Pacific Blue, Shamrock, Tumbleweed, Granny Smith Apple, Purple Mountain's Majesty, Tickle Me Pink, and Wisteria.

Magic Scents Crayons was a line of Crayola crayons that were scented. Binney & Smith Inc. introduced them in 1994 with mostly food scents. There were numerous reports that children were eating the food-scented crayons, so the food scents were retired and replaced with non-food scents, which later evolved into Color 'N Smell in 1997. Crayola has since stopped producing scented crayons.

In 1998, 24 new colors were added, bringing the total to 120. The names continued to evolve, with colors like Pink Flamingo, Caribbean Green, Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown, Purple Heart, Banana Mania, Cotton Candy, Manatee, Outer Space, Shadow, Pig Pink, Vivid Violet, and Mountain Meadow. Thistle was retired from the 120-count assortment in 2000 to make room for Indigo, and Torch Red was renamed Scarlet.

Crayola marked their 100th birthday by having consumers again name new colors and vote four out: Blizzard Blue, Magic Mint, Mulberry, and Teal Blue made way for Inch Worm, Jazzberry Jam, Mango Tango, and Wild Blue Yonder.

Timeline

A timeline of Crayola's history:

  • 1864: Joseph Binney founds Peekskill Chemical Works in upstate New York for producing carbon black.
  • 1880: Joseph Binney sets up headquarters in New York City, joined by son Edwin Binney and nephew C. Harold Smith.
  • 1885: Joseph Binney retires; Edwin and C. Harold Smith, form a partnership and call their company Binney & Smith. Early products include red oxide pigment used in barn paint and carbon black used for car tires. During this time, Binney & Smith took an active role in the development and production of carbon black from natural gas, after natural gas deposits were found throughout Pennsylvania.
  • 1900: The company begins producing slate school pencils in its newly opened Easton, Pennsylvania mill. Their carbon black wins the Gold Medal at the Paris Exposition.
  • 1902: "Binney & Smith Company" is formed September 30, in Easton, Pennsylvania, and serves as general distributor for several carbon black producers, introducing carbon black to other countries. This also marks their first crayon product, the industry crayon "Staonal" in black. This crayon precedes the Crayola brand by a full year and still exists today.
  • 1903: Noticing a need for safe, quality, and affordable wax crayons, the company produces the first box of eight Crayola crayons containing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black sticks. It sells for a nickel. The Crayola name, coined by Edwin Binney's wife Alice, comes from craie, the French word for chalk, and ola, from oleaginous.
  • 1904: Binney & Smith wins the Gold Medal during the April 1904 St. Louis Worlds Fair. Their entry was actually for their An-Du-Septic dustless chalk, but it was the foundation of their "Gold Medal" packaging in which they featured the gold medal on the front of their crayon boxes for the next 50 or so years. Given that this award wasn't given out until April 1904 and Crayola had been selling since August 1903, it is a misconception that the famous box shown on the postage stamp and in numerous other historical articles and web pages is "the" actual first design of their Crayola boxes because the box shown in all of those pictures has that Gold Medal on the front.
  • 1904-1906: Contrary to all web and printed documentation, the Rubens Crayons for Art Students line was actually introduced right from the beginning. There is authenticated evidence of this from a 1906 magazine advertisement.
  • 1912: Binney & Smith's carbon black is first used on tires to make black tires.
  • 1920: Perma Pressed Sharpenable Fine Art Crayons are added to the growing product line, which also includes new Artista brand paints.
  • 1923: Corporate offices move from 81-83 Fulton St. to 41 East 42nd Street in NYC
  • 1936: Binney & Smith becomes a founding member of the Crayon, Watercolor, and Craft Institute, promoting product safety in art materials.
  • 1948: To educate art teachers about the many ways to use the growing number of Crayola products, a teacher workshop program begins to offer in-school training across the country. Crayola also first releases its first 48-count box this year.
  • 1952: A Binney & Smith factory in Winfield, Kansas opens to handle the company's growing business.
  • 1955: Binney & Smith incorporates and changes their packaging from "Binney & Smith Co." to "Binney & Smith Inc."
  • 1958: The 64-color assortment of Crayola crayons—with a built-in sharpener—debuts.
  • 1959: The first Crayola TV ads appear during the children's TV show Ding Dong School
  • 1961: Binney & Smith becomes a publicly held company.
  • 1962: The color "Flesh" is renamed "Peach."
  • 1963: Binney & Smith becomes a member of the American Stock Exchange on May 1, with the symbol: BYS.
  • 1964: Crayola acquires Permanent Pigments Inc., producers of Liquitex art materials.
  • 1969: The company opens an additional factory in Easton, Pennsylvania, followed five years later by a new corporate headquarters.
  • 1976: Binney & Smith corporate headquarters relocate from New York City to Forks Township in Easton, Pennsylvania.
  • 1977: Binney & Smith buys Silly Putty
  • 1978:
    • Binney & Smith is listed on the New York Stock Exchange on June 19, with the symbol: BYS.
    • Crayola crayons celebrate their 75th anniversary, and Crayola markers are introduced. Craft and activity kits become a vital part of the company's business.
  • 1979: All children's product lines are repackaged to carry the Crayola trade name and all fine art materials are repackaged to carry the Liquitex trade name.
  • 1980: A private distributorship in Australia is purchased to form Binney & Smith (Australia) Pty. Ltd. to market and distribute finished Crayola products.
  • 1984:
  • 1987: Crayola introduces washable markers. Crayola colored pencils also arrive. They also add their 1-800-CRAYOLA toll free number to all packaging.
  • 1990: Eight Crayola crayons—maize, raw umber, lemon yellow, blue gray, orange yellow, orange red, green blue, and violet blue—are retired into the Crayola Hall of Fame in Easton, Pennsylvania. Emerson Moser, then Crayola's most senior crayon moulder, also retired after 37 years. After moulding approximately 1.4 billion crayons, he revealed that he is actually color blind.
  • 1991: Binney & Smith offers the eight retired Crayola crayon shades, along with a 64-box, in the Crayola Collector's Colors Tin for a limited time. Crayola Washable crayons are introduced.
  • 1992: Crayola introduces Model Magic, a modeling compound, into its long line of products.
  • 1993: Binney & Smith celebrates the Crayola brand's 90th birthday with its biggest crayon box ever—it holds 96 crayons, including 16 new colors. For the first time, the company asks consumers to name the colors through the Crayola Name The New Colors Contest.
  • 1994: Crayola introduces a scented version of crayons called Magic Scents Crayons.
  • 1996:
    • The 100 billionth Crayola crayon rolls off the production line in Easton.
    • On July 16, Binney & Smith celebrates the grand opening of The Crayola Factory visitors' center in Easton with the Crayola ColorJam parade.
  • 1998: The Crayola 64 Box is reintroduced in its original packaging, complete with builtin sharpener. A 1958 Crayola 64 Box becomes part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
  • 1999: For only the third time in Crayola history a crayon is renamed. Indian red becomes "chestnut." (The name in fact did not refer to Native Americans, but to a pigment produced in India and used in oil paints.)
  • 2000:
  • 2003:
    • The Crayola brand celebrates its 100th birthday. Four new colors of the next century were introduced and named by crayon fans: "inch worm," "mango tango," "wild blue yonder" and "jazzberry jam."
    • To make room for these new shades, some old favorites get pink slips: blizzard blue, magic mint, mulberry and teal blue. Burnt sienna stayed in the box, thanks to more than 60,000 crayon aficionados who voted to "save the shade." The newly-retired shades join eight other veterans -- including blue gray, raw umber, lemon yellow, and maize -- in the company's Crayola Centennial tins.
    • The World's Largest Crayon was unveiled at Crayola's 100th Birthday party in Easton, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 11. Breaking the old Guinness record of 10 feet, the World's Largest Crayola Crayon weighed in at 1,500 lbs., 15 feet high, 16 inches wide, in America's favorite color -- blue.
  • 2007:
    • Effective January 1, Binney & Smith Inc. officially changes its name to Crayola Inc. in an effort to modernize its image.
    • A collection of 150 crayons was released featuring every color to date excluding retired colors. The collection includes all of the 120 current colors along with 14 additional colors that are metallic (not counting silver and gold which are part of the 120) and 16 that are glitter colors. Some have the original Crayola logo.

Crayola colors

Main article: List of Crayola crayon colors
The colors in the 8, 16, and 24 packs.

Crayola crayon packs have come in a variety of sizes from 2 crayons up to 800 for the bulk boxes. The colors contained in a package have ranged from 2 up to 200 (although a 200 color package includes "special effect" crayons such as glitters or neons, etc.). In general, though, the most common packages are multiples of eight: 8, 16, 24, 32, (40), 48, (56), 64, 72, 80, (88), 96, (104), (112), and 120 packs. The 120 pack is sometimes a package composed of two 48 pack containers and a 24 pack container. There have been 240 pack Crayola Cases that simply house two of the 120 crayon cases, although limited a number of these have been produced since 2005.

Here are the colors in the 8, 16, and 24 packs as of 2005:

8 pack +8 = 16 pack +8 = 24 pack
Red Carnation Pink Violet Red
Orange Red Orange Scarlet
Yellow Yellow Orange Dandelion
Green Yellow Green Green Yellow
Blue Blue Green Cerulean
Violet (purple) Blue Violet Indigo
Brown Red Violet Apricot
Black White Gray

Trivia

  • Each year, Binney & Smith produces 3 billion crayons.[1]
  • The average child in the USA will wear down 730 crayons by his or her 10th birthday.[1]
  • On the back of many crayola colored pencil boxes they show a list of the colors in the box. For some strange reason the color black has always been drawn as a dark green color.[citation needed]
Crayola Monologues is an animated video about label changes
  • The Internet band Lemon Demon produced a song, "Ode to Crayola," which praises the company and the variety of crayon colors.
  • Kristen Andreassen, an independent country music artist, wrote and recorded a song entitled, "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes" in which the narrator goes through several shades of blue, green, and brown trying to draw the subject of the song. It contains the line, "That crayon's telling lies," a reference to Crayola's claim to make colors for everything.
  • A band by the name "Unmellow Yellow" made their debut on MySpace on June 1, 2006. Their popularity quickly rose as their melodies and satirical play on various genres made its way through the online community. The band is currently on hiatus due to one of their member's (Mahogad Ali, also of Unmenge Unterdruckung) recent disappearance.
  • Crayola Monologues is an animated video that uses Crayola crayons as a human metaphor for exploring color and identity in the United States. This animated video features crayons expressing how color hierarchies have shaped their lives.

References

  1. ^ a b c www.crayola.com/canwehelp/pressroom/colorcensustrivia.pdf PDF
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