The story

Think about it. We have been using paper with dark lines for ages. You probably used it in school as a child, perhaps tried to put a small minus sign just above the line to make it visible. At work you may have made notes from a meeting and not been entirely sure what a syllable or word meant because it clashed with the dark line crossing over it. You know, the pen makes dark lines and with dark lines on the paper we always have to put in extra effort to separate them. Without us really realising it, these clashes reduce our concentration, distracting us. These dark supporting lines have been around for a very long time, actually since medieval times when iron gall ink was used for its lasting dark colour.

And so it happened that the story of the line took a completely different direction when the simple but ingenious idea of having writing paper with white 'non-confl ict' lines occurred to Swedish designer Olof Hansson. Why would you not choose to use paper without distracting lines, if you could? It's nicer to write on and easier to read from. The lines don't show up on photocopies, there's less glare in strong light, and people with dyslexia are helped with it, and more...