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Label-makers inspire love — and organization

Anne Fizzard, an administrative assistant at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America Inc., shows off a Brother P-Touch labelmaker, one of the devices she uses to make labels at work.

AP PHOTOS

The Brother PT-1280 electronic labeling system.

Here’s the Dymo LetraTag labelmaker, one of seven in the company’s line.

Within hours of buying her Brother P-Touch 55 label-maker last year, Alison Pace found herself surrounded by a roomful of neatly labeled folders. She’d labeled files of bills, files of keepsakes, files relating to her latest projects. She’d even created labels for files she might never need.
Pace hoped the label-maker, bought in a fit of New Year’s Day-inspired organizing, would tame the paperwork in her home office and maybe help sort a few of her belongings. But she didn’t realize that this metallic blue gadget was more than just a tool to manage clutter.
It was a narcotic.
A year later, the attraction remains: “I do still feel a bit of a rush whenever I realize it’s time to make a new folder for something,” she says.
It’s nothing short of label-maker love.
The gadgets, increasingly amped up with more and more functions, are inspiring not just bouts of over-organization, but a certain kind of odd affection from those who use them. Devotees tell tales of canceling Friday-night plans to stay home labeling, and arguing with family members over whose turn it is to use the label-maker.
Label-makers aren’t new, of course: Dymo has had one on the market since 1958. In fact, you probably know someone harboring fond memories of a Dymo turn-and-click model from the early 1980s — the one they used to label their collections of Transformers and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers with embossed strips of colored plastic.
But today’s models barely resemble their Reagan-era predecessors.
Since 1990 they’ve been electronic, and they print an ever-growing array of fonts and characters on tape that comes in a variety of colors and materials, including magnetic and iron-on. Some interface with computers to print just about anything you want.
But even this versatility can’t quite explain the devotion that label-makers inspire in users.
Anne Fizzard got introduced to label-making by her boss. “I remember how protective he was of the label-maker,” she says. “The other assistant and I had to lock it away at night.”
Once she tried it, Fizzard was hooked immediately. “It does really create a sense of well-being and clarity. I just really am sold on it as a way of life,” she says.
After Fizzard labeled stacks of errant files at a nonprofit theater company she helps run, the theater’s managing director was smitten, too: “When I opened up that drawer and showed him the labels, he just sighed. He just smiled and sighed.”
Labeling folders is an obvious use, of course. But often that’s just the beginning.
Bill Henderson, vice president of marketing for Brother P Touch, uses a high-end model to remind his kids where to stow their toys. Using his computer, he can design what are essentially his own logos.
“I’ve got probably 20 different plastic storage bins, and the labels start with a graphic and then have words. We’ve got a picture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and then the words ‘dinosaur toys,’ ” he said.
A more basic function, available even on cheaper models: a time and date button. “It’s great for putting away leftover food, or putting a label on when they change batteries in smoke alarms,” Henderson said.
Dymo, which makes seven models (an eighth, the Tabletop Personal Labelmaker, hits stores this month), estimates that 10 percent of American households now have label-makers, compared with 1 percent in 1999, said Michael Kaplan, Dymo’s global marketing director.
According to Dymo, U.S. sales of home organizational products such as label-makers are expected to continue growing at a rate of 5 percent per year, likely reaching $7.6 billion by 2009.
Customers use the label-makers primarily in their home offices, but end up trying them out all over the house, Kaplan said. Label-makers can cost $30 to $140, depending on features, for models aimed at home or office use. (Models that handle more complex tasks such as batch printing or mailing labels run higher.) The refillable tape cassettes can cost $8 each, though some made of materials other than plain paper are more expensive.
While the list of uses and features continues to grow, most label-makers remain simple to use.
“We want people to be able to use them without reading the instructions,” Kaplan said. “We’ve added what’s called WYSIWYG functionality: What you see is what you get. If you bold it, or if you underline it, you see that right on the screen.”
There’s no need to buy ink or printing cartridges, as with a desktop printer, because label-makers use thermal printing technology that requires only a roll of specially designed tape. And Dymo’s newest model, which prints 195 different symbols, offers a traditionally arranged keyboard, rather than one listing the letters alphabetically — another nod toward making things simpler.
For people seeking order in a chaotic world, label-makers have become a secret weapon.
”Organizing gives you a sense — or is it an illusion — of control,” says Sharon Lobel, professor of management at Seattle University.
Lobel, whose background is in psychology, believes that our over-scheduled lives and possession-filled homes are major factors. “This is to some extent associated with the boom of the ’90s,” she says. “There’s so much to do, there’s so much stuff, and by organizing you feel like you have it under some control.”
Decades ago, Lobel points out, organizing wasn’t a profession. Today, some people resort to hiring specialists to help sort our clutter. But many attempt to wrangle their possessions on their own, and a label-maker can help, they say.
Brett Singer, a father of two who lives in Manhattan, uses his labeler to organize CDs and DVDs. “Disks, a few years ago, would have been a non-issue,” he says. “But we have so much data and we burn so much to disks. Eventually you end up with a big pile, and you’ve got to label them.”
More technology, in fact, seems to call for more technology.
A popular use of label-makers is to identify chargers in families where everyone has his or her own cell phone, camera, MP-3 player or laptops. Customers can use standard label tapes to sort these power cords, but Brother offers wrapping and flagging tapes to make the job even easier.
Organizational expert Donna Smallin, founder of unclutter.com, advises clients to use label-makers to organize anything from linens to groceries.
Labeling, she says, helps people remain disciplined as they battle clutter. By marking locations for household items, families spend less time chasing down misplaced car keys and sunglasses. “It’s amazing how much more likely we are to put things away if we know exactly where they go,” she says.
New Jersey real-estate broker Lydia Bishop prints labels to identify the keys for each of the houses she’s currently showing. “I could never write that small,” she says. “But I can print out my name and my cell phone number and it fits on the head of a key.” She also prints a number each label, which corresponds to the number she’s assigned each house on a list she keeps in her office.
Like so many Americans, Bishop does a portion of her work from home.
“For people who use these at work, or for a home-based business,” says Henderson, “it makes them look professional, whether they’re putting it on a report or making an exhibit for something, or even just on a file folder they’re giving a client.”
But Henderson has found his customers seek more than just slick-looking reports. “Half of it is looking professional,” he says, “and half of it is inner peace.”
Smallin gets the same feedback from her clients: “It does make us feel like, ‘Yes, we can exert some control over our environment,’ ” she says. “We can’t control terrorism. We can’t control the war that’s going on in the Middle East, and we can’t control violent things that happen. But we can organize our pantry.”