Back in the next to last decade of the 20th century, the crown jewel of every cool kid's school supply shopping list was a binder called the Trapper Keeper. It was mainly a large, state of the art vinyl/plastic holder that folded open to reveal several pockets, a clipboard/penholder, several colorful folders and a revolutionary "slider" style plastic 3-hole binding system to hold everything together. A the whole unit folded over and sealed up securely via the adhesive choice of the decade: Velcro.
I remember being awestruck at first with the almost limitless possibilities a device like this could offer. I could have a different folder (or trapper) for each subject, and what about that clipboard thing? You could put your note paper there, or keep it in that ultra-cool sliding binder system. Yet, what I found most appealing about the Trapper Keeper was the ultra modern designs each folder featured. Although the first ones were just one plain color or had girlie pictures like horses or flowers, the Designer's Series line up featured colourful neon fluorescent patterns with dots, squares and other cool geometric figures. Computer generated graphics were becoming popular at the time and everyone was drooling over those incredible landscapes with cubes, pyramids and spheres.
Rad Dog was such a cool word back then...
The Trapper Keeper finally was forgotten in the early 90s when everyone realised how useless it really is and its short durability due to the poor quality plastic materials it used. However, the visual style of the Designer's Series designs will always remain in my memory as the ultimate 80s look. You can see some influences of it in this blog's logo.
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