Once, the only notebook you needed for school was a 79-cent spiral-bound tablet. Now the required notebook is a $2,500 MacBook. But the humble note card is such an elegantly simple learning tool that it will never needed gussying up, right?

Wrong, according to Minneapolis-based Myndology. At least that’s the conclusion the company’s founder, Jason Kinziger, came to when helping a friend study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison back in 1997. “She had a shoebox full of note cards on top of her refrigerator, all in meticulous order, and her cat knocked them over,” Kinziger says. “She was heartbroken.”

Kinziger then recalled that on a trip to Japan the year before, he had noticed that virtually every store sold note cards held together by metal rings that opened and closed to allow the cards to be rearranged. Inspired by his friend’s mishap, Kinziger took the idea—which wasn’t patented—back to his parents’ home in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he made his first batch of ring-bound study cards. His first sale was to the University of Wisconsin bookstore.

That bit of encouragement led Kinziger to start his company—first called Mindbenders—and branch out. Eight years later, Myndology’s product line includes not only its original O-ring card organizer, but also a selection of notebooks using a binding system that allows numerous sizes of paper to be held snugly in a single spiral-bound book.

The company switched gears earlier this year, moving to Minnesota (with its high number of colleges and universities), changing its name, and teaming up with Minneapolis design firm Duffy & Partners to snazz up its products with glitter, color, and other eye-catching elements. Products range in price from $1.39 for bound, blank flashcards to $8 for top-of-the-line notebooks. Myndology doesn’t promote them solely as study aids, but also as tools for writing stories, outlining screenplays, making lists, and organizing reports.

While Myndology’s top clients have historically been campus bookstores everywhere from UCLA to Hennepin Community College, the company is now reaching out to boutiques and stationery stores, such as the local Bibelot Shop chain. 

“We hope they catch on there,” says Kinziger, joking, “If they say no, we’ll just dump them there and run off.”