NEWS

I, Pencil Family Tree and Documentary by Lewis Foster

JULY 10, 2012 by CHUCK GRIMMETT

Lewis Foster over at Thinking Sustainable recently worked on two projects involving Leonard Read’s classic, I, Pencil.

The first project is a short documentary with Milton Friedman explaining the principles of I, Pencil with clips that illustrate the complexity of a pencil:

The second project is a family tree of a pencil. From his website:

Inspired by Leonard Read’s essay I,Pencil I set out to illustrate the great complexity of a pencil, I managed to trace all the ingredients of a single pencil back to it’s raw ingredients. The pencil family tree stretches to over 4 metres long with a wide range of ingredients; from sulphur to sea salt and even to the cochineal beetle used for its red dye.

Check out more photos of the project.