The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are.Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010 M12 1 - 304 pages How did the table fork acquire a fourth tine? What advantage does the Phillips-head screw have over its single-grooved predecessor? Why does the paper clip look the way it does? What makes Scotch tape Scotch? |
Contents
| 5 | |
Form Follows Failure | 22 |
From Pins to Paper Clips | 51 |
Little Things Can Mean a | 79 |
Stick Before Zip | 92 |
Tools Make Tools | 114 |
Patterns of Proliferation | 130 |
Domestic Fashion and Industrial Design | 154 |
The Power of Precedent | 171 |
When Good Is Better Than Best | 220 |
Always Room for Improvement | 237 |
Notes | 253 |
List of Illustrations | 275 |
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Common terms and phrases
advantages aesthetic aluminum appears Basalla bathroom become beverage blade Bostitch bottle buttons catalogue church key clamshell consumer course desk developed device dinner fork early easily eating edge Emily Post engineering evolution of artifacts evolved example existing failings failure fashion fingers fish form follows form follows function function Gideon Sundback hammer hand handles Hook and Eye Hookless Fastener human-factors engineer ibid idea improvement industrial design invention inventors Jacob Rabinow Judson knife and fork knives Konaclip less Loewy look machine manufacturers McDLT McDonald's meat ment metal mouth objects packaging paper clip pastry forks pattern pieces pins plastic polystyrene prior art pull Rabinow removed scramasax screw screwdriver seems served shape shortcomings silver silverplate silverware single specialized spoon steel style Sundback tape things tines tion U.S. Patent users utensils Whitcomb Judson wire zipper