Carolina Pad

“Service, reliability, and quality at a fair price.”
Joe Hall

How It All Started The Carolina Pad story begins in 1945 in Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s when Joseph K. Hall Jr. and several business associates managed to scrape up enough money and equipment to launch a school supply manufacturing company. Joe had been operating Hall & Morris, a school supply wholesale business in Belmont, North Carolina. The new company, Carolina Pad, offered composition books, notebook paper, primary tablets, pencils, crayons, and other school supplies. A former teacher, principal, and coach, Joe was excited by the new company’s offerings.

Carolina Pad continued to sell school supplies in the market formerly serviced by Hall & Morris. But since it was now in the manufacturing businss, Carolina Pad had a lot more products to sell. To get an edge over larger, more established counterparts, Joe sold products directly to schools in the Carolinas and Virginia — often out of the back of his truck!

Joe Retires the Truck  By selling notebooks with more sheets at lower prices than competitors, Carolina Pad was able to get a foothold in the market. Over the next few decades, this strategy, along with Joe’s philosophy of quality and value, placed Carolina Pad on the road to success.

Though the company hit a few speed bumps along the way, the days of selling products out of the back of Joe’s truck were over. Thanks to brands like Fatboy, Carolina Pad grew beyond selling at a regional level and began selling school supplies nationally.

Carolina Pad Starts a Fashion Revolution  In 2000, Carolina Pad helped transform the stationery industry. How? By introducing fashion school and office products!

In the 1980s and 1990s, Carolina Pad, like many other paper product manufacturers, faced the twin challenges of declining profit margins and stiff competition from overseas. When Clay Presley joined the company as president in 2000, he quickly realized that business as usual was not an option. To survive, Carolina Pad needed to map out a new course.

So the company shifted its focus from manufacturing products to designing them. Carolina Pad was the first company to add fashion to school and office products. Clay, who bought majority interest in the company in 2003, also expanded operations internationally, opening offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Staying at the Forefront of Cool  Our products rock – at least that’s what our consumers tell us! With trendy design and great function, Carolina Pad notebooks, binders, and other school and office products stand out from the crowd. You might also catch a glimpse of our fashion collections, with catchy names like Hot Chocolate and Pattern Play, on hit shows like 90210, Greek, and Gossip Girl.

The secret to our design success:  passion, research, and attention to detail. We sweat the small stuff because we know that it's the little things that count. Our team of talented designers, led by Signature Designer (and Carolina Pad’s first designer) Jacqueline Savage McFee, stays on top of fashion trends and makes sure each product detail is perfect. From concept to prototype, innovation team managers use the latest research to develop school and office supplies that consumers love. 

Our Brands, Your Style  Our portfolio of brands now includes Studio C™, Note2Self®, Fundanoodle™, Notebound®, Sasquatch®, u:create®,  and Ghostline®. You only have to browse the shelves of leading retailers like Target, Walmart, and Staples to see how the company has grown. You can also find Carolina Pad products across Canada, Mexico, and Europe.