Category Business

How a choir book helped invent Post-it notes

One Sunday in 1974, Art Fry, a 3M engineer and choir singer, grew frustrated when the bookmarks kept falling out of his hymn book. That minor inconvenience sparked a major innovation. Fry recalled a low-tack adhesive developed by his colleague,…

The story behind the smiley face

The iconic yellow smiley face was created in 1963 by American graphic artist Harvey Ross Ball. Hired by the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, Ball was asked to design an image to boost employee morale after a…