Used filters at the DayGlo factory.
When I saw my first-ever jet-black squirrel on the campus of the College of Wooster yesterday morning, I didn’t have my camera with me. But that’s OK — it was only the second most impressive spectacle I witnessed during my two-day trip to Ohio for the Buckeye Book Fair.
The most impressive came soon after I landed at the Cleveland airport. David Wiesenberg, owner of book fair sponsor Wooster Book Company, picked me up joined me for a guided tour of the headquarters of the DayGlo Color Corporation.
My research for The Day-Glo Brothers had never taken me there. The story I tell in the book pretty much leaves off at the point when Bob and Joe Switzer founded the company that exists today, and so my fact-finding had focused on how the brothers had gotten to that point.
But as much fun as it had been getting to know the Switzer brothers on paper, through their original notes on their early experiments, there’s a lot to be said for getting a firsthand look at what continues to this day to result from that experimentation.
It made for one brilliant afternoon.
Imagine how Bob and Joe must have felt to see this color for the first time.
As they say at DayGlo, the dirtier the factory gets, the brighter it looks.
Inside the bright pink belly of the manufacturing process.
Note the footprints; I found this stuff still on the soles of my shoes hours later.
Some of the finished products, ready to ship.
Your author. Photo by David Wiesenberg.
SO cool!
It’s really neat to see how publishing this book has been a journey for you that was not even close to over at the point of its publication.
fun!
This is very awesome. Chris would it be okay if I featured one of day-glo-ing pics on Cynsations with a link to this post and a reminder link to your interview?
[…] author of this year’s awesome Day-Glo Brothers, has just lived The American Dream. He visited a Day-Glo factory. That is the definition of The American Dream as I see it, […]