When you’re trapped in a boring nine-to-five job you’ll embrace anything that helps make the work week slightly less awful. Colourful staplers, video games on your calculator, and sticky notes shaped like anything and everything but a boring yellow square. Here’s some of the best.
Cart Notes
Before the internet and the arrival of the PlayStation, gamers got their fix using plastic cartridges filled with circuit boards. And if you don’t understand why blowing on these sticky notes is funny, you need to brush up on your 1980s history. ~$8. [clear]
Floppy Disk Sticky Notes
Designed to look like the 3.5-inch floppy disks that predated the tiny USB flash drives we occasionally carry around, these sticky notes might actually be more useful if designed after their larger 5.25-inch predecessors. You’d be able to write a mini novel on each one of those. ~$10. [clear]
Origami Sticky Notes
Instead of tossing or recycling a sticky note when you’re done with it, every sheet on this pad includes instructions on how to fold a tiny origami creation. So in no time you can fill your desk with a bright menagerie of jaundiced animals and foliage. ~$3. [clear]
TV Colour Bar Sticky Notes
Sticky note designers seem to have a soft spot for technology of yesteryear. At one time television stations ended their broadcasts early in the morning, replacing late night TV with a set of colour calibration bars parodied by this stack of notes. But what it’s missing is a piercing humming sound that jolts you awake after falling asleep in front of the TV. ~$5. [clear]
Cursory Sticky Notes
Sometimes simply pointing at something can save you a lot of frustration and miscommunication. So if you desperately need to bring something to someone’s attention, this set of pixelated cursors will most certainly catch their eye and direct it to where you want them to look. ~$6. [clear]
Block Notes Sticky Notes
Put your puzzle-solving skills to the test and get that addictive Tetris theme stuck in your head with this set of Block Notes stickies. They’re not officially associated with the game, but no one’s going to know or care. Although, the thought of playing without those long straight pieces is a little distressing. ~$12 [clear]
Cassette Tape Sticky Notes
Cassette tapes might be a dead medium, but you can keep the classic mixtape dream alive with a set of post-its styled like the tapes you fed your Walkman back in the day. It’s just too bad there’s hardly any room to actually write a note on them. ~$4.50. [clear]
App Icon Sticky Notes
It was only a matter of time before the iconic collection of icons Apple created for the iPhone would be emulated by sticky note designers. This set covers the basics including blank calendar, clock, contact and note sheets. But can you make them wiggle? ~$18. [clear]
Full Moon Sticky Notes
Based on actually imagery of the moon’s surface, this is the perfect way to adorn your monitor should you find yourself working late into the night (again) in a windowless maze of cubicles. They’re semi-transparent too, so stick them on your screen and they’ll appear to glow like the celestial bodies always greeting you when you leave work. ~$6. [clear]