Adult back-to-school shopping deserves more credit than it gets, and Emily Zirimis, associate creative director at Popsugar, is making a case for it this season. The impulse traces back to something specific: a Lisa Frank dolphin folder carried through third grade, its bright colours cutting through the ordinary stress of pop quizzes and playground politics.
That early experience of curating joy through stationery never quite left. A holographic notebook cover one year, a six-colour interchangeable pen the next. Now, as an adult with a home office to outfit and a planner habit to finally, genuinely, commit to, Zirimis argues the ritual is worth reviving. The logic holds: if a £3 gel pen or a polka-dot wellness journal restores some of that anticipatory feeling, it is probably money well spent.
Pens, Planners and the Adult Back-to-School Shopping List
The stationery section is where the adult back-to-school shopping instinct is easiest to act on. Muji features prominently across several categories. The Compact Gel Ink Ballpoint Pen at $3 and the double-ended Clear Tip Highlighter at the same price point are the kind of small, considered purchases that are easy to justify. The A6 Monthly/Daily Planner Undated at $6 gets a particular mention for its clear case, which lends itself to sticker customisation.
At the higher end of the stationery range, the Louise Carmen Honoré leather notebook ($164) is described as a lifetime investment, with page replenishment options and personalisation available. Between those two extremes sits the Papier Dotted and Spotted Wellness Journal ($35), which is a collaboration between Damson Madder and Papier, bringing the brand’s butter yellow-and-brown polka-dot pattern into stationery for the first time.
The pen selection leans into nostalgia with purpose. The Sanrio Friction Ball Knock 3-Pen Set ($15) and the LePen 10-piece pastel set ($23) both speak to the idea that note-taking is a more enjoyable activity when the tools themselves carry a bit of personality. Zirimis notes she has bought LePen since early college, where it served as a small treat to make lecture-hall work more bearable.
Office Kit Beyond the Desk: Lighting, Storage and Chairs
Lighting gets its own category, and the range is wide. At the budget end, the Ikea Spetsboj table lamp ($15) arrives in butter yellow, a colour that has been running through interiors as persistently as it has through fashion. The Varmblixt LED lamp ($90), also from Ikea, was routinely out of stock when it first launched; Zirimis notes it has been consistently back in stock. The Herman Miller Matin Table Lamp ($184, down from $245) gets an endorsement with a personal note: Zirimis owns two of them.
Storage is approached with the same logic: functional, but worth making visually coherent. Herman Miller‘s Recycled Colour Crate, currently $6 after a 25% reduction from $8, is cited as genuinely versatile, used variously to store kitchen vegetables and Baggu bags. The Baggu Flat Pouch Set in Polka Dot Mix ($40) and the Pleated Baggu in Azalea Pink Tartan ($32) reflect an ongoing loyalty to a brand described as washable, reliable and playful.
Desk chairs close out the list with options from $32 to $1,800. The Sweetcrispy Small Armless Desk Chair in chartreuse green ($32, down from $40) leans deliberately into early-2000s bedroom colour nostalgia. At the opposite end, the Herman Miller Mirra 2 Chair ($1,800) is the one Zirimis says she has gone 34 years without owning and is now finally committing to.
Across every category, the throughline is the same: the pleasure of choosing things that work and look good doing it. The Emma Chamberlain x West Elm collaboration, which produced both a pleated table lamp ($159) and an Icon Candle ($50) shaped around an apple motif, sits in the desk decor section as evidence that back-to-school references are now a legitimate design language, not just a retail calendar prompt. The Herman Miller Girard Throw ($244, down from $325), in pink and green, is the final item listed: an office blanket framed as a necessity rather than an indulgence, which is, broadly, the argument the entire list is making.