Do Good Design

Good design helps you be more creative. It can even make work more enjoyable. Something as humble as the dry erase marker, done well, can be something that inspires you.

Tul Dry Erase Markers: the Pros

Take these markers. Thanks to their lovely and creative design, I’ll want to use them. They’ll entice me into actually writing down that To Do list and enjoy crossing items off jsut so I can erase it and write something new in another colour.

For the “pro” side, the colours are beautiful and bountiful — no measly boring red, green, blue and black combination. The styling fits nicely with a white Mac and are triangular in shape, which is unusual and comfortable.

More Features

The markers themselves are magnetic, meaning no more pens spilling onto the floor, cluttering the tray. The caps have a built-in eraser, so no need for a separate eraser.

the Cons

Can’t be bought in the U.K. (at least as far as I’ve found). This is probably because Tul markers are distributed exclusively by OfficeMax, an American company. You can buy them online in the US, and if you’re lucky like I am, have someone ship them to you.

Sure, it’s faintly ridiculous not to mention not the most eco-friendly with all those air miles, but I’m choosing good design over buying local today.

I did look for alternatives to Tul, by the way, but could find nothing. If you do, let me know!

Clever invention: Dry erase sheets

Now this is really cool. I’d never heard of such a thing, but this post told me about these Dry Erase Sheets that you can stick to the wall and reuse. After some searching, I found the Magic Whiteboard: “Create a whiteboard from a roll — anywhere, in seconds!”

It’s like buying a roll of clingfilm you can write on. You can tear off as large a piece as you want, use your Tul dry erase markers to brainstorm or write To Do lists, wipe and reuse as needed. Put ‘em anywhere you want.

In my case, we’ll be posting these all around our office to keep my husband Malcolm and I inspired in our work. We often collaborate on projects and like to bounce ideas off of each other, and usually we jot notes down on scrap paper — only to lose them.

So, while neither of these items are cheap (£10 + delivery for the markers, £30 for the roll of dry erase sheets), they should be things you keep and use with pleasure for a long time to come.