I first encountered loop staples at LX Factory in Lisbon.
An artist’s shop had a small publication bound with staples unlike any I’d seen before. Instead of disappearing into the fold, each staple extended outward into a small loop, allowing the entire booklet to be placed directly into a ring binder.
I was immediately drawn to the simplicity of it. It was a tiny change to an ordinary staple, but it gave a simple booklet an entirely new function.
So I took a photo.
## Finding a name for them
When I got home, I started trying to figure out what I’d seen.
This turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Every time I thought I’d found the right terminology, I’d encounter another name or another piece of equipment. Loop staples. Ring staples. Loop stitching. Machines intended for commercial print shops rather than individuals.
Eventually, through Reddit threads, old forums, and a lot of searching, I started piecing it together.
I also discovered something called the **Ring King**: a small stapler designed specifically for this kind of binding. The problem was finding one.
## The Ring King
After a long search, I finally found a used Ring King for sale through Facebook Marketplace—in the UK.
I arranged to have it shipped to me and started experimenting.
By then, I wasn’t particularly interested in the stapler itself. I was interested in what this strange little staple could make possible.
A stapled booklet is normally a finished object. A binder is a system. Loop staples allow something to be both.
## Experimenting with loops
Since then, I’ve been experimenting with loop-stapled zines and notebooks, accumulating boxes of increasingly difficult-to-find staples, and buying inexpensive staplers to see whether they can be converted for loop stapling.
I brought some of the early experiments to Grand Rapids Zine Fest and was surprised by how strongly people responded to the binding itself. People wanted to know what the staples were and how they worked—the same questions I’d had when I first saw them in Lisbon.
That experimentation has gradually developed into what I’m calling the **Ring + Loop System**: small books designed to work independently, but able to move in and out of a larger ring-bound system.
I’m still figuring out where it goes.
Which is part of the reason I’m documenting it here.