There are some ideas about how pads became the color they have, but there is no definitive answer as to where or when this tradition began. Research in color psychology can support the claim that yellow stimulates the mind. Not really a white paper. Transparent Mylar film. It`s much more durable than paper, and that`s clear, so you can hold it on a piece and make sure it fits. CAD now takes over, but for many years, when technical drawings were done by hand, Mylar was the preferred medium. I`ve seen Mylars from decades ago that are perfectly legible, they don`t wrinkle or turn yellow like paper. If you work at a law firm and are curious about other fascinating secrets of law, there are places on the internet that can give you the answers. Legal notebooks aren`t the only classic element lawyers claim for themselves. Another possibility is that Holley or his successors eventually decided to dye the paper to hide the fact that tampons were made from leftovers of different ages and qualities, and that yellow was the cheapest or most readily available dye at the time. Some reports are from a little later – probably after Holley`s time.
This includes the belief that yellow is easier on the eyes because it doesn`t produce as much glare as white, and so yellow paper was the obvious way to go. One of the main distinguishing features of the Legal Pad is the fact that it has specific margins. The American Pad and Paper Company claims that the edges of a typical legal block contain a 1.25-inch gap on the left side of the paper. Since their founding in Massachusetts in 1888, Ampad`s legal pads have evolved from a simple tampon with a stitched top to stapled, rubberized, or spiral-bound varieties in various ways. Color options range from yellow to white and lavender to green. They are available in dozens of sizes and quantities. The possibilities are seemingly endless. A simple search on the website Staples.com returns 287 results, all of which are different permutations of that first pad 132 years ago.
The Legal Pad began in 1888 with Thomas Holley. Holley was 24 years old and worked at a paper mill in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Every day, he and his staff threw many pieces of scrap metal, called sorts, that remained from the cutting of the paper into the right sheets. He knew there had to be a use for them and eventually came up with the idea of cutting the types to the same size and linking them into small notepads. Since the paper was essentially trash for the factory, they were able to sell the tampons at a low price. MS. SNIDER: And they were also extremely opposed to documents of legal length in terms of space efficiency. There are a few competing hypotheses about how the pads then turned yellow, but none can be verified and no one seems to know when the pads first came out in color. One origin story suggests that yellow contrasts well with black ink without glare, making the text easier to read. Or that from a psychological point of view, “yellow is a great color to stimulate mental activity,” so writing on yellow notepads could boost your creativity or clarity. The first batches of towels sold so well that Holley quit his job at the factory and started his own business to collect leftovers from local factories and make and sell his towels.
In 1888, a young man named Thomas Holly was working in a paper mill in Massachusetts. At the end of each day, he and his colleagues had to pick up all the pieces of paper and throw them away. The enterprising guy got tired of doing this and decided to tie those scraps together and cut the edges for compliance. He sold these newly created notebooks to the general public. The origin of paper in legal form is somewhat murky. One possibility is to use 17 “x22” shapes to print paper during the period when Henry VIII was able to print paper. He was King of England. It was the largest size that could be easily transported. These sheets were known as fools` caps, which lawyers cut in half for their official documents, resulting in a 17 “x11” sheet of paper. This was eventually reduced to the smaller legal format we use today. BRAND: You know, I have a legal block here, and I have to admit that this isn`t the most comfortable article because, above all, it`s too big.
The sides are, shall we say, not very firmly attached to the top. It`s not — I don`t know — as compact as I`d like it to be in a pad of paper, then. The most well-known feature of a legal block? The color yellow. But why are they yellow? Good question. In order to answer them, however, a brief explanation of their history is first necessary. Holley then went on to start a company that made these substandard towels. And the Legal Pad was born. The first stamps Holley sold were actually white. And no one knows why. The history of legal notebooks, or what we see right now, has a notepad, dating back to the late 1800s.
BRAND: Suzanne Snider is an editor for Legal Affairs magazine. His article on the history of the yellow law block is in the current issue. Lawyers have taken over because their profession requires a lot of writing and note-taking. Over time, notebooks with letter-size paper became known as legal blocks because notebooks could be easily placed in client files. Strangely, legal-sized notebooks are not as common as they used to be, as attempts are made to keep paperwork in a standardized size. The guidelines help to draft uniformly and directly, and apparently the largest margin has been added at the special request of the legal community. It seems that people in the legal profession don`t always use this type of paper, and artists and writers swear by them all the time, so why on earth call them legal notepads? Explore. Some people also use wired notebooks. In addition, doctors sometimes prefer to use personalized notepads to write prescriptions for their patients. If you work in a sales organization, you can also purchase legal block holders and custom letterblocks to write notes at a meeting or conference. Using a custom legal block with your company logo also makes an impression on people attending a meeting. Whatever the initial reason, legal tampons are often associated with the color yellow.
However, many law firms have switched to white blocks because yellow paper cannot be easily recycled. Some people also prefer the lighter contrast of dark ink over white paper. However, it seems unlikely that yellow paper will ever disappear. Although its pieces of paper are not yellow, they are at the origin of what has become the legal block. That Thomas Holly was the one who came up with the idea of including lines in separate sentences is something we`re not sure about. It is likely that blue was simply the color that contrasted best with yellow, and therefore the lines of legal stamps are usually blue. BRAND: Can you be a legal pad and just be a modest 8 1/2 inches by 11? He tied them together in notepads and effectively created what we now know as a loose-leaf notebook. This worked well for Holly as he was able to buy large amounts of free paper for her notepads. His idea worked so well that he quit his job at the factory and started selling notebooks full-time. Despite the haters, including Chief Justice Warren Burger, who banned legal documents in 1982, there are many people who can`t imagine life without the Legal Pad.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and writers Johnathan Dee and Pat Conroy attribute the success of their work to the use of a legal notebook. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, former national security adviser John Bolton and the late American author Pat Conroy are just a few of his millions of followers. We`re talking about the epitome of Legal Pad office supplies. It`s simple, professional, cheap and instantly recognizable. In fact, I only used it for the science fair and it`s not true that yellow paper affects your memory. There are a few competing hypotheses about how the pads then turned yellow, but they haven`t been verified and no one seems to know when the pads first came out in color. One origin story suggests that yellow was chosen because of the “stimulating effect” of color on a person`s intellect and stood out well from glare-free black ink, making text easier to read. Rumor has it that the legal blocks are yellow, making it easier to recognize lawyers` handwritten notes in a pile of documents. Another theory is that yellow stimulates creativity or that it is easier to read black ink on yellow paper.
The most plausible theory is that the current yellow block comes from the origins of the notepad itself, assembled from discarded papers at different ages and stages of yellowing.