If you’re unfamiliar with the vulgar, technicolor fever dream above, you’re clearly not schooled in the art of Lisa Frank, which was forged in the fires of hell and emblazoned upon the notebooks, folders, backpacks, and all manner of school supplies belonging to female children in the 1990s. I certainly fell prey to the rainbow pusher, myself. (Support groups help me to deal with the trauma.) To say that it was a craze makes it sound more conscious than it actually was—we were feral little teddy bear/unicorn/dolphin junkies, and we had to have Lisa Frank products.

If you’re wondering what it was about this stuff that invoked such a frenzy from so many little girls, you have to realize what a perfect storm of girly interests it was. Many children just have a genuine attraction to the hyper-feminine aesthetic, and whatever black magic or super science Frank used has produced some of the purest, uncut concentrations of girliness known to girlkind.
 

I cannot overstate the importance of unicorns to the Frank school of art.
 
Of course, some of us actually weren’t particularly partial to baby animals, hearts, and rainbows, but as boys boasted adult-sanctioned separate social worlds (often around sports), many girls craved a feminine culture of our own. There’s also the appeal of a famous woman creating a ubiquitous brand- Lisa Frank was the first female artist a lot of kids could name. And of course, some of us probably just enjoyed the surreal insanity of it all, and probably grew up to do lots of hallucinogens.
 

I had this exact notebook. I would have cut a mother to assure all covetous peers that this notebook was rightfully mine.
 
The weirdest thing about Frank though, is her aversion to the spotlight. When some one’s artistic legacy is so conspicuous, there’s something a little eery about a life of secrecy. Refusing to be shot in anything but silhouette, Lisa Frank haunts this video in her very first public interview, her terrifying cast of characters in tow. The whole thing is giving me flashbacks to a childhood not unlike a bad trip at a rave. A warning to those with sensory sensitivity: you may want to have a dark room ready if it becomes too intense.