Eraser Brush

Make mistakes, then clean up after them. A vinyl eraser set into a beech wood block with a small horsehair brush. A handy tool for drafters and drawers. Handmade in Berlin, Germany. (more info)

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Just because you made a mistake, it doesn’t mean you have to live like a slob. This eraser is fitted into a beech wood block, and on the other end is a little horsehair brush to sweep off the rubbings.

The eraser brush is a product of Die Imaginare Manufacktur, a collaboration between contemporary industrial designers and the sight-impaired artisans of the Berlin Institute for the Blind. This brush is designed by Elder Ferreira Monteiro.

The director of the institute reminds us that the blind see with their hands, a skill you can feel in the brushes they make. The bristles for each brush is stitched into the wood with a long piece of bronze wire — you’ll have to break the wood to get a bristle to fall out of this bind.

Use & Care

Use the eraser as normal on pencil, then brush away the rubbings like a tiny table top broom. Once you’re down to the nub of the eraser, pry it out and replace it with a new one. (When we’re not writing with pencil, we’ve found the brush to be handy for dusting off our keyboards.)

Production & Design

The collaboration between designers and the Berlin Institute for the Blind started as a project by industrial design duo Oliver Vogt and Hermann Weizenegger, who used to walk by the windows of the Institute and admire the craftsmanship of the brushes and baskets.

Vogt and Weizenegger joined up with the Institute, staying true to traditional manufacturing practices while incorporating contemporary designs. The resulting Die Imaginare Manufacktur (The Imaginary Factory) is a widely-lauded, on-going collaboration between artisans and industrial designers.

The horsehair bristles are sourced from South America and the beech wood from either Germany or the Czech Republic.