Designing things must be so nice. You spend five years busting your balls in college, get a nice degree that allows you to do new and exciting things, and you get your first job. You create something new or alter it in a way that makes it ten times better than it was before. And no one will ever remember your name.
While that might have been slightly depressing, it’s not as depressing as the actual reality: most of the time, people won’t even know what the hell it is you changed and why the hell it would make it better than it was. It’s kind of like when Kanye did his Bohemian Rhapsody cover. Sometimes, people just don’t understand pure genius (or, in this case, the genius is secretly batshit insane).
Let’s do some good in the world and look at some brilliantly thought-out design in the form of putting holes in things of which no one actually knows the true purpose. Because even product designers deserve respect. I think. Let’s assume they do.
The hole in ballpoint caps
This is a fun one. You think it’s to prevent your ballpoint pen from drying out, right? It’s not. The actual reason this hole exists, is to save the lives of small children. Whenever a small child would – in its limitless intelligence – chew on a cap and swallow it, this hole would prevent the airway from closing up entirely. Your kid would survive, but you’d still be stuck with a child that thinks it’s a great idea to chew on a pen. Win some, lose some.
The little holes in Converse All Stars
The holes in Converse All Stars are there to prevent children from suffocating after eating them. Also for ventilation. It’s just ventilation, I made that other one up. I guess it could legitimately work, though. Someone get a child with a healthy appetite to test my hypothesis. I hold no liability for the results.
The hole in your pot handle
Yup. That’s where you put your cooking spoon. This also allows for a makeshift catapult to give your food fights some extra spice. Bombard them with boiling tomato sauce and we’ll see who wins.
The hole in your pasta spoon
Yup. Your mom probably taught you every trick in the book to figure out how to portion your pasta for one person. Turns out that’s what the hole in the spoon is for.
The holes in the windows of airplanes
This little fellow prevents the window from fogging up (so you can make a more accurate calculation of how long it would take you to hit the ground if the engine caught on fire right now) and it also compensates for air pressure. Because if it didn’t, that window seat would explode in your face.
The hole on the bottom of a padlock
This is actually made to drain the lock so it doesn’t rust or freeze. It also allows you to oil the lock to keep it working well, but who the hell does that. I mean, how long are you not opening something that you’d need to oil the lock you’re locking it with. Just get rid of it.
The hole in a ruler
This is an easy one. It’s for hanging it up. I’ll cover why the f#@! you’d want to hang up a ruler in the first place in my next article (I honestly won’t, I can’t think of a single reason. Just put it in a desk drawer like normal people).
The hole at the end of a tape measure
In today’s episode of “something I haven’t even seen an actual professional do with tools”, we discuss the tape measure hole. Apparently that’s where you hook it into a nail or screw so you can measure the distance without the risk of it slipping. Most tape measures also have that weird plastic lock thing you can use for the exact same thing, but at least you can do this. I guess.
