90s stationery brand Lisa Frank, known for its colourful notebook designs has become a point of interest online this week as some visit its factory in Tucson, Arizona. As the site is featured on TikTok, we explore what happened to the Lisa Frank factory.
Abandoned Tucson site features on TikTok
Over the past few days, the Lisa Frank factory in Tucson, Arizona, has been featured on popular video sharing platform TikTok.
Videos on the platform see fans of the colourful stationery company document their visit to the mostly abandoned factory as they share shots of its exterior details.
The walls of the building are seen to match the aesthetics of the 90s brand, which was known for its vibrant colour pallet, as one wall of the building is painted with the colours of the rainbow with another featuring musical notes, hearts and stars.
As the Tucson factory is talked about across social media, some are now curious to know what happened to the site.
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What happened to the Lisa Frank factory?
Lisa Frank, named after its founder, was established in 1979. Over the next few decades, the brand became known for its colourful designs and stationery.
The success of the brand later led to the eventual opening of the Lisa Frank factory in Tucson, Arizona in 1996.
At the time, according to Web Urbanist, the factory was said to have up to 400 employees. However, in 2013, it was reported the workforce had decreased to just six. In the same year, ex-staff of the brand spoke out on the situation in an article by Jezebel titled Inside the Rainbow Gulag.
According to an article by the Arizona Daily Star, by 2016, the location had been empty for a number of years and all that was left on site was the brand’s inventory archive.
Over the years the factory has been documented online many times and was even visited by Urban Outfitters in 2012 who shared a tour inside the site which promoted the launch of Lisa Frank products being sold on the brand’s site.
One of the more recent visits was by Insider in 2018 who at the time shared how the building had started to age.
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Is Lisa Frank still around?
Yes. Although the brand is not quite the same as its peak in the 1990s. In recent years the brand is said to have licenced artwork to separate companies that handle the production of goods.
Elsewhere, over the years, Lisa Frank has become known for its collaborations with other brands. Last year saw the company release a collection of products including eyeshadow pallet brushes and sponges with makeup brand Morphe.
Lisa Frank is also active on Instagram where both images of products and artwork inspired by the brand’s designs are shared.