YTONET Zipper Binders

A zipper binder is a three-ring binder that closes: the rings hold the paper, the zip runs round three sides, and nothing falls out in a bag or a locker. The two binders here add a padded sleeve on the inside cover, for a 14-inch laptop on one and a 15.6-inch laptop on the other, a pencil case that clips to the rings, ten pockets for the loose sheets, and a handle so the binder goes down a corridor on its own. The larger one carries a cup holder on the outside, which is the detail that tells you who it was made for.

The accordion file organizer is the desk piece: thirteen pockets in a hard case with a combination lock on the clasp, for the documents that live in a drawer rather than a bag. It is the one thing on this page without a laptop sleeve. On a child's back a full zipper binder is a large share of a school load, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, linked on this page, puts the whole pack at no more than 15 per cent of the child's body weight; the binder is one thing in it, and the laptop inside the binder is the heaviest.