The most powerful design tool ever!

Most people will argue that the computer is arguably the most powerful design tool ever. Yes with programs like Photoshop and the ability to design things down to the millimetre electronically and make changes on the fly the computer has ushered in a new age of design. But I posit the humble restaurant napkin as our most powerful design tool. I was inspired when I read a post on Torontoist about Bruce Mau's Massive Change exhibit. Apparently the idea for the exhibit was concocted on a napkin and is shown above. Uber-architect Frank Gehry also designs buildings like the Disney Hall and the Guggenheim Bilbao on a paper napkin

And what's this scribbly looking thing? Well that's Alexander Graham Bell's preliminary sketches for the phone. . Imagine where we'd be if Graham Bell was sitting in a fancier restaurant that used cloth napkins? Or if his assistant Watson got a little tipsy and spilled something on the sketch? Or had his eye on a young philly across the room and decided to borrow Alex's napkin? [Boy Reporter's note: go to this website it's quite funny!] No phone, no telecommunications revolution! One wonders how many other of Graham Bell's many many inventions were done first on paper napkin? This is after all the man who Evan Solomon claims helped invent the modern world as we know it. I think the napkin wins this argument hands down.