Highlighters!

This week 123-Awards.com is featuring highlighters on the site. It got me thinking about the ubiquitous little pens that are so much a part of our office lives. Which in turn got me doing a little reading.

According to Wikipedia (eat grain of salt now) these little felt-tip wonders are another gift to the world from the fertile minds of the Japanese. They were invented in 1962 and they have continued to catch on like yellow wildfire every since.

Did you know that most ink colors are florescent and therefore glow in the dark? I didn't. How cool is that? While they were originally yellow, they are now available in multiple colors, the most common being yellow, pink, blue and green. I often use multiple colors to designate functions on hard copy documents.

Some of them are "dry" which applies a strip of tape like the old audio cassettes (which makes them erasable).

And who doesn't have one? Once the domain of students marking their text books for easy reference, they've become an organization necessity for some. And it's not just the color that's changed. They are now in a variety of different forms -- triangular shaped with three different tips, built into pens, highlighters with little sticky notes attached, pens in clever shapes (like syringes for hospital use), and my favorite: little stubby ones that come in a plastic case of four.

A number of years ago I bought a bunch of them to give out as swag at a government trade show. The people loved them. I keep several for my own use, but am still working with the original set. The dang little things really last.

They also make a good substitute for crayons. Whenever one of our staff needs to bring in a little one for a bit, if they didn't bring crayons I break out the highlighters and let them go at a page. Makes for some pretty interesting work.

I just did a quick search and guess what? There are artists out there who specialize in artwork using highlighters!

Why am I not surprised?