Behold Crayola's new, thoroughly underwhelming crayon
Just as you're starting to recover from Crayola's heartbreaking decision to kill off off the beloved Dandelion crayon, the company goes and reveals Dandelion's utterly underwhelming replacement.
Yes, after a full month of mourning a pivotal piece of our childhood and Crayola boxes, the art supply company that broke our creative little hearts revealed the currently nameless stick of wax from the blue family that will be joining the box.
The only problem? It looks a bit like every other blue crayon we've ever known, which is a tremendous letdown.
On Friday, the brand new crayon was revealed at an on-campus event at Oregon State University, the place where the vibrant YInMn Blue pigment that inspired it was first discovered in 2009.
In a press release shared with Mashable, chemist Mas Subramanian -- who discovered the pigment with his team -- said that it's a true honor to see his work inspire such a "beloved instrument for creativity."
An artist's point of view
This discovered pigment is cool and all, but if Crayola used National Crayon Day (Mar. 31) to literally rid the world of a crayon, we were at least expecting the replacement crayon to be some magical, mind-blowing color that we had never seen before. Not just another shade of blue.
Melanie Boulden, Senior Vice President, U.S. and Global Marketing at Crayola explained that the decision to introduce yet another member of the blue family came from previous polls and surveys that indicated blue was the favorite color of fans in North America.
Nevertheless, here it is. And here are three other very similar looking blue crayons that already exist in Crayola's classic 24-pack -- blue, cerulean, and indigo. This all makes sense. This makes so much sense. They all look very different.
Now to my untrained eye, this looks like a regular blue crayon, but just to be sure I wasn't being blinded by grief I decided to seek out some professional opinions from a real artist.
After hearing from one of the creative minds of Mashable's art team -- who is admittedly more of a colored pencil fan -- I learned that I wasn't so off-base.
After acknowledging that the forced farewell to Dandelion was "a big loss for the art community," he admitted that at first glance the color does resemble some of Crayola's other blues.
However, when it all comes down to it, he doesn't think it's the end of the artistic world.
"Will it really make a difference when your two-year-old is drawing a house or a tree or whatever?" Mashable's color expert asked. "Think of all the blue things that current and future generations of artists will be able to render more realistically. Blue skies. Blue oceans. Cookie Monster. Grover. Other things. Very exciting."
Okay, Crayola ... except not really.
Despite the fact that Crayola has revealed images of the new crayon that kind of looks like other blue crayons, the new crayon is still sadly without a name. Rather than just naming the piece of wax, Crayola is instead calling on the people of North America to use their exhausted noggins to make yet another decision.
Naturally, the company is prolonging the madness by turning the crayon naming into a contest, which kicks off today at Crayola.com/NewColor.
From now until June 2, Crayola fans and all those seeking justice for Dandelion can submit name ideas and also be entered for a chance to win one of four weekly prizes. *sighhhhh*
Here are some excellent suggestions:
Blue’s Clues
Blue-nicorn
Blue-nicorn frappucino
We’ll never be royal (blue)
This Is Blue
Crayola blue it
Blue Crush
Bright Sky
Murky Water
Jorts
Blue jean baby
Lucille Blue-th
Blue Ivy
On July 1, Crayola will release the top five blue crayon names online, calling once again on the very patient people of the world to vote on their favorite. Then, after what must be longest crayon naming process in history, Crayola will unveil the new winning blue crayon color name in EARLY SEPTEMBER. Just in time for back to school.
AND THEN, because this is still not over, the new blue crayon will reportedly make its official product debut in late 2017 through early 2018.
Crayola, why oh WHY is this taking so long?
Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.
