Matt JohnsonExcuse me, I believe you have my stapler.
It’s strange to think that a few short years ago, the common experience of white-collar work included the rush hour grind, pointless team meetings, and idle chit-chat at the water-cooler.
But work has changed a lot since the coming of the dreaded plague, and many of us in the design and tech world now have the option to work from home — for all its pluses and minuses. (Font Awesome has been a remote-first company since its inception!)
Of course, there are pros and cons to the work-from-home culture shift. But one thing’s sure — we’re not interacting with the Miltons of the world much anymore. Who’s Milton, you ask?
Well, Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead, also dabbled with other cartoons. One of which was an animated short called “Office Space”, which later became the basis for his 1999 film of the same name.
Office Space aired on Liquid Television and Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s and featured “Milton,” its main character who was really attached to a specific stapler.
This isn’t Mike Judge’s Milton. He’s Font Awesome’s Milton! (Skip ahead to 1:28 in the video on our home page.)
So in honor of the Miltons of the world, we’re proud to present the stapler icon.
This is stapler — the story behind the icon.
In 1999, Mike Judge graced us with the box office version of “Office Space“, a comic take on the soul-sucking work environment of a typical 90s software company. Milton, a savant-like, quietly disgruntled side-character who donned coke bottle glasses and threatened to “burn the building down” if they moved his desk one more time, griped incessantly about his missing red stapler.
Use our duotone stapler icon, and you can recreate Milton’s favorite colorway.
<i
class="fa-duotone fa-stapler"
style="--fa-primary-color: red; --fa-secondary-color: dimgray"
></i>Fun fact: Milton’s coveted stapler was spray-painted red. In fact, Swingline didn’t manufacture a red stapler until three years after the movie’s release. Just another example of reality imitating art.
“I believe you have my stapler …”
We don’t see our oddball icons in the wild often, but we believe in you, Font Awesome Community. Now’s your chance. Show off your design flair!
Commission or Upvote the Icon You’ve Always Wanted
Did you know you can commission an icon to be officially added to Font Awesome? It’s true. All Font Awesome users will have access to the icon, and we’ll note you as the official sponsor. Get in touch with us for more details and next steps.
Or, you can make an icon request and vote it up the ranks of our icon leaderboard to get it officially added to Font Awesome.
