This reminded me of The Evolution of Useful Things [1] by Henry Petroski, which in one chapter explores the incremental development of the paper clip from its origin as a straight pin that pierced the set of papers.

An aspect of paper clip design that’s easy to overlook is that you also need to be able to manufacture them at scale, so the machinery to produce them also needs to evolve with the overall form of the product.

[1] https://ia600104.us.archive.org/11/items/pdfy--rXmwRDB5uzq5M...

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