The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 1967–2017
Fiskars turns leftover orange plastic into a billion-selling design icon (1967)
An ergonomic plastic-handle scissor keeps an accidental orange color, wins a 9–7 worker vote, and becomes Fiskars' identity — over a billion sold.
Fiskars (Fiskars Group)
What it had to solve
In 1967 most scissors were heavy steel tools. Fiskars, the Finnish company founded in 1649 as an ironworks, worked with designer Olof Bäckström to create the world's first plastic-handled scissors: lightweight, comfortable and easy to handle.
How it works
In 1967 Fiskars — a Finnish company founded in 1649 as an ironworks — introduced the world's first scissors with plastic handles. Designer Olof Bäckström's curved handle made the tool lighter, more comfortable and easier to use than the heavy steel scissors of the era, an early exercise in ergonomics for everyday products.
The orange was an accident. The first prototypes were produced in the same factory that manufactured Fiskars juicers, where orange plastic was left in the machine, and when the handle color went to a vote, orange beat black by 9 votes to 7. Instead of standardizing on a safe color, the company kept the leftover orange and eventually made it the whole brand.
The decision paid off: more than a billion pairs have sold worldwide, the scissors entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 'Fiskars Orange' was registered as a trademark and became the corporate color, and in 2017 the Helsinki Design Museum marked the design's 50th anniversary with an exhibition.
Why it lands
- Ergonomics came first: the plastic handle solved a real usability problem, so the memorable color had a genuinely better product behind it.
- A leftover material from another production line became a brand asset — findability (you always spot the orange scissors) turned into identity.
- The 9–7 worker vote made employees co-authors of the decision, which gave the orange a story people repeat for decades.
- One consistent color across one consistent object made a utilitarian tool instantly recognizable worldwide.
What it did
More than a billion pairs have sold worldwide; the scissors entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; 'Fiskars Orange' became a registered trademark and the company's corporate color, and the design still defines the brand half a century later.
What you can take
An accident can become identity if you treat it as a decision: Fiskars voted on the leftover orange, standardized it, trademarked it and let one color carry the brand for five decades.
Since then
Fiskars Orange became the company's trademark and corporate color, and the scissors stayed in production for decades as a design classic — over a billion sold, in MoMA's permanent collection, and subject of a 50th-anniversary exhibition at the Helsinki Design Museum in 2017. The story is now a standard example of Scandinavian functional design turning a happy accident into a lasting brand.
Sources
- From the kitchen to MoMA: 50 years and over a billion pairs sold worldwide
- The iconic orange scissors by Fiskars are 50 years old
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card