crayola's law

this may be showing my age, but i remember watching this years ago & feeling very excited afterward, coloring with my own box of crayons. for many of us, i imagine crayons [crayola or otherwise] are our first foray into experimenting with color—likely because they're easy to carry around, generally don't make much of a mess, and are easy for little hands to hold and control.

but like everything else, over time, things change. crayola packaging got a fresh update within the last few years. & this is to say nothing of the crayons themselves.



i came across this article the other day that illustrates what has now been dubbed "crayola's law"—namely, that the number of crayola colors doubles every 28 years. but there are other interesting things to note, too, like how many shades of red and purple there are, especially as compared to the small blue-green range.

other things to think about: is the increase of crayola colors destined to be exponential, or is there a limit to the number [not only w/r/t space in a box, i mean]? do the increases in certain shades correspond with demographics or higher sales in certain geographic locations? perhaps most importantly, will the large range of color choices in any given box of crayola crayons change the way children experience and relate to color?