Save this article to read it later. Find this story in your account’s ‘Saved for Later’ section. Because they are erasable, pencils are often the first tool creative people use when sketching out a ...

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Donald Trump’s Sharpie — a writing tool that suggests permanence, inflexibility, indelicacy, and a desire to overpower whatever precedes it on a page — is the ...

1. There is no risk of lead poisoning if you stab yourself (or someone else) with a pencil because it contains no lead — just a mixture of clay and graphite. Still, pencil wounds carry a risk of ...

In spite of the consumer love affair with high-tech tablets and other digital devices, people are still enthusiastic about making their mark using low-tech, graphite-lead pencils. That gave pencil ...

A class of fifth-graders from Green Acres Elementary in Lebanon, Ore., asked us to find out how pencil lead is made. That quest took us all the way back to the dawn of the universe and then all the ...

On March 30, 1858, inventor Hymen L. Lipman patented the first pencil with a built-in eraser—then sold it for $100,000. Believe it or not, this is not the first time in history that a little stick of ...

International design and art direction awards D&AD is set to replace its In Book and Nomination Awards with two newly designed Pencils as part of an Awards-wide refresh. Coming into effect from the ...

In all likelihood, if you rummaged through any given school desk in the U.S., the first pencil you'd encounter would be a number two pencil. Here's why. Danny Ortega The United States tends to do its ...