DAVID ADAMS takes a look back at where it all began for Post-it Notes…
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PICTURE: Vivek Chugh (www.sxc.hu) |
Ever since Romy and Michele, in the 1997 movie Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion, told their former highschool classmates that they were the inventors of Post-it Notes in a lie designed to impress, the question of who really invented them has no doubt niggled away at millions.
Well, Post-its are this year celebrating their 30th birthday and in honor of that landmark, we’re taking a look back at how it all began (and here’s a hint, it has nothing to do with Romy and Michele!).
The idea of a sticky note goes back to several employees at US stationary giant 3M. According to an account on 3M’s website, it was Dr Spencer Silver who, in 1968, discovered the formula for the sticky material which coats the back and his colleague Art Fry who came up with the idea of using the sticky stuff to coat the back of small notes which could easily be moved (the idea apparently came to him while looking for a way to mark pages in his hymn book).
The first Post-it Notes were introduced to the market in the US in 1977 but the response was initially poor and it wasn’t until a concerted marketing drive which involved distributing samples that the idea caught on.
As of 1999, there were more than 600 Post-it products on the market in more than 100 countries. Post-it Notes themselves are available in eight sizes, 25 shapes – from stars to hearts – and 62 colors (the yellow color was apparently initially chosen because that was the color of paper they had lying around the lab).
Sorry about that Romy and Michele.
If you have a word you’d like to know the origins of, simply send an email to [email protected].
