Origami Mapping. First test of projection mapping with small origami structure. Video made over a weekend project in less than 48h. Visuals made in Blender and mapped with use of AFx. Source

Demo project: Flare scene. Interactive stand. Demo project template for ARBuilder constructor. Source

PYRAMID. Sound reactive - Projection mapping visual on the Pyramids wall at ACE Club - Saigon - Vietnam. Thanks for the amazing tools Resolume Arena and MadMapper to help us complete this project nicely. Source

24-Hour R&D: Instagram Projection Mapping. The fourth project in our R&D series: 24-Hour R&D. We wrote a program to access live Instagram and Twitter information. It can display photos by hashtag or from a select user as well as the associated tags, captions or “likes” information.

We thought it would be fun to map it to some boxes from a previous R&D project to make the display a little more interesting. Images are mapped to boxes according to likes (more likes - bigger box) while their tags are displayed in the background with the color of each tag being associated with the colors of the images. Source

How Square moves Cash

It’s now been a few weeks since Square Cash was available to the public, with much talk surrounding the use of e-mail as a service and concerns of security.  However, I have yet to see anyone talk about how Cash actually moves money around, which I think is actually one of the most interesting facets of the service.

ACH - the status quo

First, a primer on how other services move money.  Pretty much any service that allows you to send and receive money requires you to connect your bank account via the Automated Clearing House (ACH).  You may be able to use the service with just a credit or debit card if you only plan on making purchases, but if you want to receive money you must connect a bank account.  The telltale sign that you have connected an account via ACH is if you have ever been asked to verify two small deposits into your account.  Services such as PayPal and venmo use ACH in this manner, and typically you hold a balance in your account with this service that you must transfer out to your bank account if you want to access the money outside of the service.  

This is the status quo among payment services (with notable exception dwolla) and frankly it’s terrible.  Not only do you have to sign up for this service, you must then enter an account number that you likely need to look up somewhere, then wait two days to verify these two small dollar amounts into your bank account.  Granted, the worst part about this process, the two day waiting period, is to help prevent fraud, but as an impatient user I can’t help but think that there must be a better way.

Enter Square

This lengthy account creation process creates friction with users, and Square clearly recognizes that; to start sending money with Square cash, you simply send an e-mail and cc cash@square.com.  Once you do this, Square will send you an e-mail that asks you to enter your debit card info, and you are done.  Cash sent.  On the receiving side, you also get an e-mail asking for your debit card, and nothing more*.  There are no bank account numbers involved, how can they do this?  The answer deceptively simple:they issue a refund to your debit card for the amount you are sent.

To explain this, let’s jump for a moment into the world of credit cards.  Obviously the most important feature of a credit card is to be able charge an amount.  In the world of retail, however, a mechanism to refund an amount in the event a customer wishes to return an item, is equally important.  With a credit card this simply means your account is credited instead of charged.   With debit cards, your “balance” is an actual bank account, so when you refund a purchase on a debit card, money is deposited into your account directly.

The genius of Square Cash is that someone realized you can process a refund without having an initial charge in the first place.  This makes debit card refunds an interesting corner case, and given that Square’s primary business is credit card processing, it is not surprising that they are the ones that figured out this was possible (and presumably get a pretty great deal on the rates while they are at it).  

Now, I’m not sure how happy the banks and/or credit card companies are with Square using (abusing?) the system in this way, but I’m sure they have or will work out the necessary terms to keep moving cash.  In the mean time, I will continue being a satisfied Square Cash customer.

Postscript

Reducing friction doesn’t come for free, and Square is likely going to deal with more fraud than these other services.  One way they are combatting this is via incremental account verification.  For example, if you send money over $250, Square requires additional information from you to upgrade your account to“Gold Status”, including your address and social security number.  This way, people can start using Square cash for small values with minimal setup, and only if/when they use it for large values will they have to input this supplemental information.

* Now, you can use Square Cash directly with a bank account, but only for receiving money, since the two-step ACH verification process is only needed to make withdrawals from an account.  A debit card is still required to send cash.

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Apple's utterly amazing 1980s foray into fashion

When it comes to Apple apparel, nobody can stop talking about the rumored iWatch that may or may not make its debut in 2014, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time the company got into the wearable business. If we rewind time a few decades, we find a fabulous clothing line launched by Apple that is covered in obnoxious neon and lots of blank stares. So brace yourself and pop your collar; we’re about to take a trip to the 1980s.

[Product photos via So Bad So Good]

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15 Fashions People Were Rocking in 1983

IMAGE CREDIT: 

URBAN BUSH BABES

Last week, we took a sartorial stroll down memory lane—one littered with flannel shirts and babydoll dresses worn with Doc Martens—to recall, in pictures, the biggest back-to-school fashion trends of 1993. You liked it and we like that you liked it. So we decided to step into our fashionable time machine yet again (it’s a DeLorean, of course) to go back in time an additional 10 years and recall—with mild horror—the most popular looks of the early 1980s.

1. OFF-THE-SHOULDER SWEATSHIRTS

You didn’t need to know how to weld or work a stripper pole in order to get into the comfy casual slouchy sweatshirt look popularized by Jennifer Beals in 1983’s Flashdance (top). And since it really was just a sweatshirt, it worked for fashionistas of all ages. And it still works today (spend an afternoon crafting one at home).

2. MEMBERS ONLY JACKETS

Photo courtesy of Filmyr

The cost of membership into the legion of kids wearing these utterly plain coats—which proudly displayed your Members Only status on the chest—was just a few sawbucks. Introduced to America in 1980, the coats were produced in a variety of colors and materials (leather was the crème de la crème) and promised in their ads that “when you put it on, something happens.”

3. HAWAIIAN SHIRTS

Photo courtesy of Among Men

Young boys and old men had man-crushes on Tom Selleck, who played Hawaii’s sexiest private investigator, Thomas Magnum, a.k.a. Magnum P.I., from 1980 to 1988. While his sweet Ferrari was out of financial reach for most of the decade’s youth, two of Magnum’s looks were rather easy—and inexpensive—to emulate: that iconic mustache (check out these tips for growing your own) and a bright red Hawaiian shirt. Sales of the beachwear staple skyrocketed during the show’s run, with Magnum’s original “Jungle Bird” Aloha Shirt widely considered the holy grail of Selleck-inspired button-downs. 

4. BIG SHOULDERS

Photo courtesy of Sophie Grumble

From no shoulders to big shoulders! On shows like Dallas and Dynasty, a woman’s power could be measured by the height of her shoulder pads. Translation: the bigger the better. Dynasty stars Joan Collins and Linda Evans were the poster women for the trend, which was popular in both high schools and boardrooms. The most versatile of padded shirts and blazers were equipped with a Velcro strip on the inside of the shoulder, which allowed women to swap out the size of the pad, depending on the day and/or occasion. 

5. POPPED COLLARS

Photo courtesy of DVDActive

In the 1980s, collars were meant to be turned upward. Particularly if that collar belonged to a preppy wearing a polo shirt. Stripes were in, particularly those of the candy-colored variety, and an Izod alligator emblem was the epitome of high style; it even received a shout-out in Lisa Birnbach’s now-classic The Official Preppy Handbook. 

6. BARACUTA JACKETS

Photo courtesy of J. Crew

Eagle-eyed viewers of the “Popped Collars” photo above (a still from 1983’s Valley Girl) may have spotted what was Members Only’s fiercest competitor in the 1980s: Baracuta. Imported from England, the Baracuta G9—whose solid colored exteriors belied the plaid madness happening in the lining—was first popularized by Elvis Presley in the late 1950s, when he wore one in King Creole. Ryan O’Neal wore one on Peyton Place as did Christopher Reeve in Superman; Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and 1980s preppies were fans, too. Earlier this month, Baracuta introduced a new website dedicated to the jacket’s history of cool (with options to buy, of course). 

7. EXERCISE GEAR

Photo courtesy of Wendi Aarons

Jennifer Beals and Olivia Newton-John weren’t the only ’80s trendsetters turning exercise gear into streetwear. Fashion-forward gals were taking attire typically reserved for aerobics and dance classes into classrooms, malls, and even the workplace. Among the “Let’s Get Physical”-inspired accoutrements were headbands, leg warmers, spandex, slouchy socks, and leotards with matching tights (the shinier the better).

8. GUESS JEANS

The designer jean trend is still raging on, and we owe that to the 1980s, when Calvin Klein, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Jordache were among the biggest names in denim. But no logo defined 1983 better than the Guess triangle, sewn firmly into the back right pocket. (And yes, occasionally that was sewn firmly into the back right pocket of a pair of stone-washed jeans.)

9. PARACHUTE PANTS

Photo courtesy of Regalo.com

If you were breakdancing in the ’80s, you probably noticed that your backspins and windmills were much improved when you were wearing a pair of parachute pants. Not to be confused with the parachute pants of the late 1980s (the balloon-like variety preferred by M.C. Hammer), the earlier incarnation was made of nylon (ripstop nylon was particularly popular), often brightly colored, and littered with zippers.

10. JELLIES

Photo courtesy of Pip Pip Hooray

Don’t be alarmed if you have a pair of jelly shoes in your closet right now, because they’ve made a comeback in recent years. (Even BuzzFeed says so.) But it’s impossible to talk about fashions of the decade and not make mention of these PVC shoes, which came in rainbow of colors and cutout patterns, some of them heeled, some of the filled with glitter, and many of them retailing for $1 or less. (Nope, that’s not a typo—one dollar!) 

11. LACE WITH AN EDGE

Photo courtesy of Mirror80

It’s hard to know where to begin with the number of trends for which Madonna is singlehandedly responsible: Crop tops, big ribbon hairbands, mesh shirts, crop tops, and lace gloves are just a few of the now-iconic looks she debuted in her videos for “Holiday” and “Lucky Star” in 1983. Fortunately, it would be a while before her Boy Toy belt buckle became a thing. 

12. SWATCHES

Photo courtesy of Swatch

Swiss timepieces took a turn for the brightly-colored and slightly cheesy when Swatch debuted its line of plastic watches (the name Swatch is a contraction of “second watch,” referring to their somewhat disposable nature) in 1983. Their fun styles and inexpensive price tags led many fans of the brand to wear several of them at once.

13. RAY-BAN SUNGLASSES

Photo courtesy of TomCruise.com

Ray-Ban owes a huge debt of gratitude to Tom Cruise, who made their Wayfarers the sunglasses of choice for other wannabe teen pimps following 1983’s Risky Business. Two years later, he donned their Aviator shades for Top Gun… and sales jumped 40 percent.

14. CALVIN KLEIN UNDERWEAR

Photo courtesy of Esquire

Calvin Klein has been the first name in men’s underwear for more than 30 years for a reason: He was the first designer to want to make guys care about what came between them and their Calvins. He launched an ad campaign that could not be ignored, as this billboard attests. Even today, men’s underwear still makes up a large percentage of the company’s annual income. 

15. KANGOL HATS

Photo courtesy of The Fashion Bomb

A signature chapeau of the hip-hop industry, Kangol hats are most often associated with Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, and The Notorious B.I.G., but Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were some of the brand’s earliest adopters, as evidenced by the cover image of their hit single, “The Message.”

Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/52845/15-fashions-people-were-rocking-1983#ixzz2fklhpfPk 
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The History of the Trapper Keeper

I grew up with the Trapper Keeper so this was an article I had to share.

IMAGE CREDIT: 

ACCO BRANDS

In the fall of 1981, second grader Mike Ryan was walking through the halls of his new school when he realized something terrible: He was the only kid without a Trapper Keeper. “I’m sure there were others,” he says now. “But I certainly didn’t notice them because they weren’t worth noticing because they didn’t have a Trapper Keeper.” After school, he told his parents his tale of woe, and his father picked one up—but it was the wrong thing, a rip-off made of what appeared to be denim. To Ryan’s horror, everyone noticed. “Trapper Keeper? That looks more like a Trapper Jeansper,” one kid sneered.

“It was that weird thing where having a knockoff was worse than having nothing at all,” Ryan, now a senior writer at the Huffington Post, says. “Being the new kid, this was strangely devastating.” He would eventually get the real thing—bright red, with red, green, and blue folders. “It didn’t make me cool, but at least I felt like I was conforming. Which, at that point, is all I had hoped for.”

Launched in 1978 by the Mead Corporation (which was acquired by ACCO Brands in 2012), Trapper Keeper notebooks are brightly colored three-ring binders that hold folders called Trappers and close with a flap. From the start, they were an enormous success: For several years after their nationwide release, Mead sold over $100 million of the folders and notebooks a year. To date, some 75 million Trapper Keepers have flown off store shelves.

“The Trapper Keeper is one of the most recognized school brands of all time,” says Jessica Hodges, Director of School Marketing for ACCO Brands. It’s also a prominent pop culture touchstone: Trapper Keepers have been featured on Family Guy, Dawson’s Creek, South Park, Full House, and Napoleon Dynamite. They were transformed into a Trivial Pursuit game piece. John Mayer called Trapper Keepers “the genesis of OCD for my generation.”

These organizational devices would come to define childhoods across North America, and adults who had them remember their Trapper Keepers fondly. (And those who didn’t have them often remember exactly which one they wanted.) Joshua Fruhlinger at Engadget called it “the greatest three-ring binder ever created … Trapper Keepers—the way they combined all of one’s desktop tools—were an early incarnation of the smartphone.” There is robust business in vintage Trapper Keepers on eBay, where unused binders can go for $50 or more.

But in the late 1970s, the people at Mead couldn’t have known that their product would eventually garner such cultural significance. In fact, Trapper Keeper inventor E. Bryant Crutchfield was just looking for the next back-to-school item, and he did it the old fashioned way—through market research. “[The Trapper Keeper] was no accident,” he tellsmental_floss. “It was the most scientific and pragmatically planned product ever in that industry.”

SITUATION ANALYSIS

As director of New Ventures at Mead, part of Crutchfield’s job was to identify trends in the marketplace. In 1972, Crutchfield’s analysis, conducted with someone at Harvard, showed there would be more students per classroom in the coming years. Those students were taking more classes, and had smaller lockers.

Fast forward a few years, when Crutchfield’s analysis revealed that sales of portfolios, or folders, were increasing at 30 percent a year. Thinking back to that Harvard report, a lightbulb went off. “You can’t take six 150-page notebooks around with you, and you can’t interchange them,” Crutchfield says. “People were using more portfolios, so I wanted to make a notebook that would hold portfolios, and they could take that to six classes.”

Crutchfield was speaking with his West Coast sales representative about what he planned to do when another piece fell into place. Portfolios in notebooks were a great idea, the rep said, but why not make the pockets vertical instead of horizontal?

PeeChee folders. Image courtesy of Mead.

Folders with vertical pockets, called PeeChees (as in, peachy keen), had been around since the 1940s and were sold on the West Coast, but they had never made the leap across the Rockies—so Crutchfield was doubtful. “I said, ‘They only sell on the West coast, and what’s the real benefit of a vertical pocket?’” Crutchfield remembers. “[The rep] said, ‘When you close it up, the papers are trapped inside—they can’t fall out. If you’ve got a horizontal pocket portfolio, you turn it upside down, and zap! [The papers] fall out.’”

Crutchfield was convinced and got to work. First, he took sketches of the portfolios and notebooks to a group of teachers to find out if there was truly a need for that kind of thing. The group said that student organization was a major problem, and the teachers would welcome any product that would help in that regard.

Next, Crutchfield created a physical mock-up. Unlike the PeeChee—which had straight up-and-down vertical pockets—Crutchfield’s portfolios had angled pockets, with multiplication tables, weight conversions, and rulers on them. “It was like a textbook inside,” he said. Then he designed a three-ring binder that held those portfolios and closed with a flap. Students could drop the notebook, and the contents would stay securely in place.

Trapper portfolios. Image courtesy of ACCO Brands.

So Crutchfield had a mock-up of his product, but he still didn’t have a name. That came from his research and development manager, Jon Wyant. “I said, ‘I need a name for this damn thing. Have you got any ideas?’” Crutchfield remembers. The next day, they were drinking a martini with lunch when Wyant said, “Let’s call the portfolio the Trapper.”

"What are we going to call the notebook?" Crutchfield asked. "The Trapper Keeper,” Wyant replied.

"Bang!" Crutchfield says. "It made sense!" And that was that.

TESTING THE MARKET

The prototype Trapper Keepers—one with the logo, one without. Photo courtesy of E. Bryant Crutchfield.

With his product named, and a prototype created (the “Trapper Keeper” logo stuck on in press-on-type, and the design—soccer players—held on with tape), Crutchfield went to the next step: more focus group testing. He and other Mead representatives went to schools with the Trappers and Trapper Keeper, talking to students and teachers to get feedback. He also looked for input a little closer to home, from his 13-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son: “I had access to what they were doing in school,” he says, “and I saw their lockers and talked to their teachers.”

For about a year, Crutchfield conducted interviews and focus groups, tweaking the design of the Trapper Keeper along the way. “There were probably five or six iterations,” he says. And once he was happy with the result—a PVC binder with plastic, pinchless rings (they slid open to the side instead of snapping open), a clip that held a pad and a pencil, and flap held firmly closed by a snap—it was time to run a test market, which would help them determine if the product was truly viable.

Patents on two key Trapper Keeper features: The combination pencil holder/notepad clip and the pinchless plastic binder rings. Images courtesy of Google Patents.

Prior to the test, Crutchfield wrote a commercial and flew from Dayton, Ohio—where Mead (and now ACCO) was based—to Manhattan, where he hired three actors and filmed the clip for a mere $5,000 in just three hours. He was short on cash, so it had to get done—but getting it done wasn’t easy. One actor in particular was having a tough time. “It was very straightforward—the kid had a notebook in his arms, and his papers fell out [when a cute girl came over],” Crutchfield says. “We were about 20 minutes away from when the camera goes off [when] he finally got it. I said ‘Wrap!’ and that was it.”

Courtesy of ACCO Brands

The chosen test market was Wichita, Kansas. In August 1978, Mead aired the commercial there and rolled out its Trapper portfolios and Trapper Keepers. What happened next was unexpected: “It sold out completely,” Crutchfield says.

Inside each Trapper Keeper (which came with a few Trapper folders) was a feedback card; if kids sent it in, Mead would send them a free notebook. Approximately 1500 cards were returned. Under “Why did you purchase the Trapper Keeper rather than another type binder?” kids said things like:

"I heard it was good. My girlfriend had one."
"So when kids in my class throw it, the papers won’t fly all over."
"My mother got it by mistake but I’d seen it on TV, so I decided to keep it."
"Instead of taking the whole thing you can take only one part home."
"Because they keep your papers where they belong. They’re really great—everybody has one." 

But Crutchfield’s favorite comment—and the one that got the biggest laughs at the sales meeting—came from a 14-year-old named Fred. Fred had seen the commercial, and bought the Trapper Keeper rather than another binder to “keep all my shit, like papers and notes.”

Fred’s response card. Courtesy of E. Bryant Crutchfield.

“Kids that age are very open and honest,” Crutchfield chuckles.

The response cards also revealed that it wasn’t just kids buying the Trapper Keepers: Adults were buying it for record and recipe keeping, Crutchfield says. 

After reviewing the test market results, it was clear that Mead had a hit on its hands. Crutchfield told Bob Crandall, the regional sales manager, “This just might be the most fantastic product we’ve ever launched. I think it’s really going to shake up the school supplies market.”

GOING NATIONAL

The company decided to roll out Trappers and Trapper Keepers nationally in the summer of 1981. To prep, Mead created a prime-time network television campaign—a pretty unusual thing for a school supply. They also ran ads in print featuring Mrs. Willard, a 9th grade teacher from Wellington, Kansas, who had recommended the Trapper Keeper to her students during the product’s run in the test market. In the ad, she summed up the benefits of using the Trapper Keeper:

“Most students keep the Trapper Keeper in their locker. Then, they just change Trappers from class to class. With no large notebooks to carry around, they travel light and easy. After school, they take the Trapper Keeper home with all the Trappers inside.”

The folders came in three colors (red, blue, and green) and kids had six Trapper Keeper options: three solid colors and three designs—soccer, dog and cat, and Oregon coast, which were stock photos that Crutchfield bought from an agency. The Trappers had a suggested retail price of 29 cents each, while the Trapper Keepers had a suggested retail price of $4.85.

“We rolled it out, and it was just like a rocket,” Crutchfield says. “It was the biggest thing we’d ever done. I saw kids fight over designs in retail.”

GROWING AND CHANGING

In its third year on store shelves, Trapper Keeper sales were still going strong. It was at that point that Mead made a design change, replacing the metal snap with Velcro. Crutchfield created a prototype for that, too, and pulled it out of his attic for his conversation with mental_floss. “The only difference is that it’s got Velcro stuck on there, and it’s dusty!” he says. The cover design was a waterfall—a photo Crutchfield had snapped himself in the mountains of North Carolina.

Even though Velcro was a hot new material at the time, replacing the snap with it made sense for a lot of reasons beyond that, Crutchfield remembers. One was the fact that “people had trouble finding the center of the snap to snap it,” he says. The other had to do with manufacturing. “Snaps were a lot harder—you have to put [the binder] through a machine twice to put the snap in there. Velcro was a lot easier to apply.”

Though the Trapper folders remained virtually unchanged through the years, the Trapper Keeper evolved as student needs evolved. “Additional designs were introduced annually and were reflective of what was relevant in the eyes of our student consumers—unicorns, cool cars, video games,” Hodges says.

Mead employees working on art for the Trapper Keeper designer series. Photo courtesy of ACCO Brands.

In 1988, Mead introduced the Trapper Keeper designer series—fashionable, funky, and sometimes psychedelic designs on the binders and folders that ran until 1995. “Mead employed a large amount of local illustrators to provide early artwork,” Peter Bartlett, director of Product Innovation at ACCO Brands, tells mental_floss. The company also made a deal with Lisa Frank and put her designs on Trappers and Trapper Keepers, and licensed iconic characters like Garfield and Sonic the Hedgehog for the binders. Even Lamborghini got in on the action, granting its blessing to put some of its cars on the Trapper Keeper.

Image Courtesy Cam Hughes

Of course, anything as popular as the Trapper Keeper will almost inevitably face a backlash—but in this case, the backlash didn’t come from students. Crutchfield remembers that some teachers complained about the multiplication and conversion tables, which they said could help students cheat. “It was a controversy at one time,” he says. “One teacher said, ‘Hell, we can take the portfolios away from them while they’re doing their tests.’ Most of the teachers were very honest and said, ‘Anything that helps me pound it in their head is good.’” 

Mention Trapper Keepers to your friends, and you’ll inevitably hear from someone who desperately wanted one, but couldn’t have it because it was banned by their school. “The Trapper Keeper started to show up on some class lists as a ‘do not purchase’ because [teachers] didn’t like the noise of that Velcro,” Bartlett says. “[So] we switched from Velcro back to a snap.”

But in some cases, what the binders that schools were calling Trapper Keepers and banning weren’t actually Trapper Keepers. “Our research has shown that what they’re calling Trapper Keepers, [are actually] these big sewn binders that are three to four inches thick and can’t fit into a small school desk,” Bartlett says. “That’s the reason they’re on the list. When you show [the teachers] a real Trapper Keeper, with a very slim, one-inch ring fixture, it’s like, ‘Oh no, that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t have any problem with that!’”

Though it became less popular after the mid-1990s, the Trapper Keeper has remained an important part of Mead’s back-to-school line of products—though it has undergone some modifications. “The main change is that we went away from PVC, as most health-conscious companies are trying to do,” Bartlett says. “So it looks slightly different because it’s made out of polypropylene and sewn fabric, but the function is essentially the same.” One line, which was introduced in 2007 and available for a year, was even customizable. “They had a clear piece of plastic in the front,” says Richard Harris, the program manager of industrial design at ACCO. “There was a printed pattern behind it, but then you could put whatever you wanted in that clear sleeve in the front.”

But the cool, psychedelic designs of the early 1990s aren’t as big a focus in the Trapper Keeper line these days. “Trapper has evolved a little bit to relying strongly on a color coding system of organization for students,” Bartlett says.

THE FUTURE OF THE TRAPPER KEEPER

Mead and ACCO have big things in store for the Trapper Keeper, although Harris and Bartlett won’t say what. “We’ve been really excited to look at the icon of the Trapper Keeper and see how we can bring it back to its heyday,” Bartlett says.

The Trapper conference room at ACCO Brand’s Dayton, Ohio office. Photo courtesy of ACCO Brands.

What they will comment on is why they think people still love the Trapper Keeper, many decades after they last had one. “It was fun to be able to show your personality through the binder that you had,” Bartlett says. “You don’t really remember a notebook or the pens and pencils you used. But maybe you remember your [Trapper Keeper].” Harris says that the binder “wasn’t a regular school product. When you got it, it was almost like a Christmas present. You were excited to have it.”

Ryan agrees. “It’s the first time it was possible to have ‘cool school supplies,’” he says. “It made something that most children dreaded—school supply shopping—into something that at least bordered on fun.”

But even the man who invented it all can only guess at why his product became more than just a school supply to a generation of kids. “When I first went to work, all school products were drab and boring,” Crutchfield says. “[Trapper Keepers were] more functional and more attractive, with oodles of choices—therefore fun to have. And I had a lot of fun making them fun!”

Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/52726/history-trapper-keeper#ixzz2fkl72mwN 
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