Today's Ritual Object: KINKO'S BAG

Remember Kinko's?

Image: Kinko's Bag circa 1998-1999

If you were born before 1999 you've definitely encountered a Kinko's before. Before it was acquired by FedEx in 2004, it was the premier destination for students and business people, alike. A copying heaven. 

Paul Orfalea, the founder whose curly hair earned him the nickname “Kinko,” opened the first location in 1970, just across the street from the University of California, Santa Barbara. At the time, Xerox machines were expensive, rare, and gatekept by institutions. He didn’t set out to launch an empire. He just noticed what students needed: affordable copies, fast. Orfalea’s insight wasn’t technological: it was social. What if you made the technology public? What if you democratized duplication?

With every reproduced syllabus, zine, flyer, and résumé, Kinko’s was unknowingly archiving the invisible infrastructures of late 20th-century life. My own love of Kinko’s was forged during summers with my grandparents. I’d go between Pittsburgh and D.C., depending on which grandparent had agreed to babysit me and my brother for the summer, and which family member lived closest to whichever sports or arts camp I was going to attend. This usually shook out as 3-4 weeks with each one. When I was with my maternal grandfather, there were rituals to be followed, daily.

Kinko's Bag

I come from a military-adjacent family. Both of my maternal grandparents served, through my grandfather was the one who maintained a disciplined set of morning rituals until he passed away. He retired as a Colonel in his early 50's, traveled the world, and our paths crossed at exactly the moment when I was old enough to hold compelling enough conversation, and he was relaxed enough to genuinely listen to the musings of a 7-year-old. Each day our ritual was the same: 1. I’d wake up and come downstairs, where the treasures he’d procure from his 6am Sam’s Club ventures were laid out in full display. Usually pastries, bear claws, sometimes muffins.

2. We’d head to church. I grew up Catholic, though I’m no longer practicing. I made it up to my First Communion, so church was a multi-day experience some summers. Weekday mass is short, sweet, to the point; usually, if the church has a smaller chapel it takes place in there due to the smaller crowd. I loved this. I still love the heaviness of being in spiritual places; like weighted blanket for the soul. 3. After church was over we’d go to Einstein’s Bagels where I’d order a bagel with egg and cheese, and he’d order an everything bagel with one side salmon, one side onion and chive cream. I’d pretend what he ordered was gross, before asking him for a bite. Things had to go in this order: me complaining, him laughing, me asking, him acquiescing. 

4. We’d go over to Kinko’s. I’m sure the first time it was because he genuinely had to make copies of something. Every time afterward was because I demanded it. I loved the assortment of papers they had with all kinds of borders. I obsessed over which paper I would choose for which purpose: the balloon adorned white paper for a poem about a circus, one with diamonds a letter to my friend Whitney, a professional-looking beige and white marble for my teacher. All designed to evoke, for them, who I believed they were. I didn’t know it then, but I was in the company of some of the greatest designers of the 90’s. “At its height of popularity between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, Kinko's outlets in urban centres across North America were catch basins for writers, artists, anarchists, punks, insomniacs, graduate students, DIY bookmakers, zinesters, obsessive compulsive hobbyists, scam artists, people living on the street, and people just living on the edge. Whether you were promoting a new band or publishing a pamphlet on DIY gynaecology or making a fake ID for an underage friend, Kinko's was the place to be.” -Eichhorn, K. (2014). Copy Machines and Downtown Scenes: Deterritorializing urban culture in a pre-digital era. Cultural Studies, 29 (3), 363–378. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2014.937940

My mom has kept artifacts from my childhood for many, many years and I love her for that. She keeps all of my journals, papers, art projects and sometimes I'll go through my own archives for inspiration. I'm always surprised at the things that young me wrote or found valuable.

I’m not entirely sure who I chose these two papers for, but whoever they are, I hope that small gesture from young me somehow rippled into their universe to bring them wealth, joy, and a beautiful relationship with nature.

( I tend to enjoy like symbolic writing utensils: Check out my other prototypes HERE)