Most Designers, Artists, Architects love a good Sharpie! Whether it be the fat dark ones to do some heavy handed sketching or the new pens for a smooth note writing experience. Now they've developed - or sort of redeveloped - the erasable pen. Or maybe it's a permanent pencil! This schizophrenic writing apparatus goes on smooth with a wet ink, can be erased like a pencil, but then dries "permanent" in 3 days time. So they claim.
It feels a bit strange when you try to figure out why you might want that, but a little easier to think of it replacing either your pen or your pencil. For the pencil, your leads won't break or wear down; no more clicking or twisting. And you are still able to erase and fix and rewrite whatever you want - as long as you don't change your mind after 3 days of course. For the pen, no more white out, the permanence and elegance of pen that you can erase and clean up - as long as you don't let anyone see it for 3 days.
So really, this pen/cil is the editing, stewing, sleep-on-it time we should be taking before pressing send on that email. You have 3 days to decide if that's really what you wanted to say. Or do you?...
The guys at Engadget did an
experiment and they were still able to erase after a week. So they followed up with Sharpie and got a twisted
answer that said that yes it will always be erasable but the shadows and marks left behind after 24 hours meets the ISO standards for a "permanent" pen.
It's so sad when a trusted institute like Sharpie lies to it's loyal followers. But at least it can be a pretty cool pencil.
