The orange box tipped me off that here was something new. The mail came just before Minipeanut got off the school bus, and as soon as he saw the box sitting on the porch, his second-grader eyes got wide, and he said, "Mine!" He just knew that anything that came in THAT box had to be really cool.
I'm glad to meet you, too, Poppin! And that's part of the point. Poppin's a new company that sells office supplies, but its website says that it wants to be to office supplies what Starbucks is to coffee. That means that the experience is important, and the graphic qualities of both the packaging and the product are what sets Poppin apart from the local big box office supply store. The people at Poppin want to make office supplies interesting and fashionable.
I saw a blog entry about the company over at Notebook Loves Pen, and it was just those graphic qualities that interested me, so I went to the website to check it out and ask for an invitation. Meredith, Poppin's Director of Press Happiness, sent me a goodie box. (Isn't that a great title? I want a title with the word happiness in it.) Inside the box I found pens...
The simple, streamlined design puts the focus on the color, which is a great deal of the attraction. Poppin has a whole rainbow of color-coordinated supplies. The Poppin logo is stamped on each one but is understated so that it won't interfere with the visual attraction of the pen, unlike some other pens I could name. *cough* Platinum Preppy *cough* Poppin's attention to detail is impressive, and I hope that they can keep it up after their official launch. Their products are fun.
The ballpoints have black ink. I'm assuming that Poppin's target market consists of urban professionals, for whom black ink says serious and committed to the job, but pretty much everyone I've shown the pens expected them to have colored ink to match the pen. Poppin might carry versions with other colors of ink, but I don't know because I haven't gotten an invitation to the website yet, so I haven't seen the whole line of products.
The ballpoints write well without skipping, but they're black ink ballpoints, so again the special part is in the graphic quality of the pen design. If I had my choice between these and the Bic stick pens that come out of most supply closets, I'd definitely take the Poppin pens because they're more fun and do write better, but they won't replace my fountain pens. The highlighters' colors are nice and bright, and the yellow one didn't smudge the ballpoint ink, which is a problem I've had with that color in other brands of highlighters. The colors, except the blue, don't scan well, but highlighters are supposed to do that. They look bright on the paper.
My thanks to Meredith, the Director of Press Happiness. Fine print: I have no affiliation with Poppin or any of its employees. Oh, and the box? I did let Minipeanut have it, and it now proudly houses some of his favorite Lego minifigs. In funkypeanut world that's a huge honor.
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