Is Lisa Frank's Financial Portfolio as Colorful as the Folders She Probably Keeps It In?

Nineties icon Lisa Frank definitely made the tedious act of going to school far more bearable. It sounds silly, but a brightly-colored notebook with a kitten exploding out of a rainbow universe can sure make math seem more fun.

The designer rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s by way of wacky art and eye-catching drawings. There wasn't a single color in the Crayola crayon box that Lisa didn't use.

She has always been a private person and rarely granted interviews. She was almost as magical and mysterious as the unicorns that would pop up on the occasional Trapper Keeper.

Although she has dipped in and out of the zeitgeist, Lisa's designs have never really gone away. Because of her dedication to making the weird accessible, she undoubtedly has a net worth that is out of this world. Here's what we know.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Lisa has amassed $200 million since starting her company in 1979. Lisa was only 24 years old when she started designing colorful stickers out of her guest house in 1979, per Huffington Post.

By July 2012 they were working out of an enormous 320,000 square foot warehouse in Tucson, Ariz. that sadly closed down in 2013.

The good news is, KGUN reported that Lisa was apparently moving back in sometime around November 2023. A fresh coat of rainbow paint seemed promising.

Although Lisa has since been quite successful on her own, she started out pretty comfortable, reported Jezebel. She grew up on an affluent part of Detroit that was often ranked one of the top five richest cities in America.

Her father was fairly high up in the automotive world and by all accounts, supported his daughter's love of art as he was a collector himself. He even bought her a loom when she was a kid. Who outside of the Industrial Revolution is looming it up?

At the prep school where she attended high school, alongside Mitt Romney, Lisa once made $3,000 in sales at a student-run art show. While at the University of Arizona, Lisa would buy handmade pottery from local Indigenous people then would turn around and sell them for a higher price back home in Michigan.

She soon commissioned art from the artists in Arizona, which led to her own line of jewelry at the age of 20. It was sold at Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s.

At the age of 25, Lisa got her first big order from Spencer's Gifts who wrote her a check for $1 million. Less than two decades later, Lisa Frank's flamboyant school supplies line was earning her $60 million a year. The 2000s were less kind to Lisa Frank, who was only making around $2.3 million a year in 2013.

Of the 350 employees who once helped run her empire, six were left. Many people point to poor management from Lisa and her ex-husband James Green, who ran the company with her.

Karen, who worked in the sales department in the early 2000s, told Jezebel that it was the worst place she ever worked. "I think Lisa’s parents [funded the start of] her company. She’s an artist, not a business person," she said. When it came to finding a job, most people in Tucson knew to steer clear of Lisa Frank. Former employees said it was a very toxic place to work.

For more on the many controversies surrounding Lisa Frank, stream Glitter & Greed: The Lisa Frank Story on Prime.