Crayon Logo Download

A crayon is a stick of colored wax that almost everyone remembers using as a kid. Made by mixing simple melted wax with bright color powder, these little sticks are cheap, completely mess-free, and easy for tiny hands to grab. They give children their very first taste of drawing long before they ever touch a paintbrush or a pen.

The familiar box we all know took off back in 1903 when two American businessmen, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, figured out how to make safe, non-toxic wax sticks for schools. Binney’s wife came up with the name "Crayola" by blending the French word for chalk with a word meaning oily. That first little box cost just five cents and came with only eight colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black.

Making them is pretty straightforward. Factories melt down large vats of clear wax, mix in the colors, and pour the liquid into cool metal molds shaped like pointed cylinders. Once the wax hardens, machines wrap paper labels around each stick so the color doesn't smudge off on your fingers. Besides the bright colors, almost anyone can instantly recognize that classic crayon smell, which comes from the ingredients used to soften the wax and instantly brings back memories of sitting at a small school desk.