ESSAYS

STICKER ART
Essasy stiker art

https://obeygiant.com/essays/sticker-art/

18 de abril 2023

Stickers rule. When I pause to think about it, stickers

have changed my life. It is hard to believe that paper
and vinyl with adhesive backing can do so much.
Repetition works, and stickers are a perfect medium to
demonstrate this principle. As long as stickers are being
put up faster than they weather or are cleaned, they are
accumulating. For cities, it is a constant maintenance
battle. Simple fact is, it’s a lot easier to put stickers up
than to clean them off. People also seem unable to resist
the urge to stick them on their belongings, car, stereo,
skateboard, guitar, and the list goes on. What’s on
stickers doesn’t even have to be that cool, they still
manage to make their way into every nook and cranny
on the planet.

What’s the deal with stickers anyway? This article is

supposed to be about stickers in the context of graffiti
(more clearly defined as “aerosol art”), but the
relevance of stickers extends far beyond just the graff
world. Literally defined, by Webster’s, Graffiti means an
inscription or drawing, message or slogan, made on
some public surface. Under this broad definition,
almost all stickers seen in public could be considered
graffiti.

I’m not sure whether this article is supposed to be a

more academic discussion, but I’m providing my
history with stickers because it is very relevant to my
point of view. My introduction to stickers as graffiti was
not through the aerosol art graffiti scene. I grew up in
South Carolina where graffiti was non-existent with the
exception of the usual “Darnell loves Shanice” or “Go
Bobcats.” I did however; start to notice skateboard and
punk rock stickers here and there as soon as I took
interest in these two things at the beginning of 1984.
Since my friends were into punk and skateboarding as
passing fads, only momentarily distracting them from
their paths as respectable preps, I found sticker
sightings an encouraging sign that there were more
dedicated proponents of punk and skate culture lurking
somewhere in the city. Stickers were evidence that I
wasn’t living in a total void. I wanted stickers as badges
of my culture. At first I would just buy skate stickers
and put them on my stuff. I couldn’t even figure out
how to get punk stickers, so I learned how to draw all
the band logos. Then my mom bought a copier for the
business she ran out of our house. It was on, now I
could copy graphics from the skate mags and my album
covers onto Crack n Peel and make my own stickers.
Pretty soon everything I owned was covered with them.
At the same time I was making paper-cut stencils of
skate and band logos for spray paint and silkscreen
application. These activities continued through high
school, less as a way to make art than as a way to avoid
actually having to pay for stickers and t shirts, many of
which were not available in S. C. anyway. Besides, my
parents had expressed their dislike of anything skate or
punk related and would provide no financial support for
additions to my wardrobe in these categories.
*Interesting side note: At this time, I still had not had
real contact with “wild style” graffiti, with the exception
of attending an art summer program with David Ellis,
a.k.a. SKWERM, who would go on to start the
acclaimed Barn Stormers graffiti project. At art camp,
SKWERM was obsessed with tagging on everything,
and showing off flicks of NYC and graff he’d done on
barns. I didn’t understand his passion for graff or NYC
and made fun of him by signing my name on his
message board with a bunch of arrows coming off it. He
soon explained to me that I was a “toy” and needed to
“step off”. I was amused by his behavior at the time, but
would get it later. In 1988 I moved to Providence, RI to
attend the Rhode Island School of Design. I
immediately linked up with all the punks and skaters.
Stencils and stickers were business as usual, but with
the addition of some more personalized alterations of
the graphics I would rip-off. Providence had a
tremendous art and music scene compared to what I
was used to, and stickers were everywhere. There were
tons of band stickers, political cause stickers (mostly
college activists), and most interesting to me, a few art
stickers and “hello my name is” tag stickers. A lot of the
art stickers beckoned the question “to ponder the
sticker as a means of expression and communication for
an individual, instead of just representing a band,
company, or movement. For years I had defined myself
through associations with things that represented skate
and punk culture. This path to forming an identity
appealed in high school, but did little to alleviate the
existential problem of anonymity once I had left high
school and entered into an art school environment full
of “alternative” people just like me. I liked the idea of
having my own sticker, but couldn’t think of something
clever enough to be worth executing. I looked at it
almost as seriously as getting a tattoo. I paid very close
attention to stickers and I would try to figure out who
and what was behind any sticker that I saw. I even
started photographing flyers, stickers, and other forms
of graffiti. During a museum trip to New York that
freshman year of college, I saw graffiti in risky places
that gave me new respect for the dedication of the
writers. Stickers and tags coated every surface in New
York City. I left the city inspired, but I was somehow
convinced graffiti was something you had to be born
into, like a Black or Hispanic mafia, and a pale cracker
like me could never be accepted in that culture. I did
however, think that I could make stickers and
accomplish some of the same things.

That summer I was working at a skate shop called The

Watershed. The boss liked my homemade t-shirts and
asked me to design some stickers and tees for the store.
I was amazed; people actually liked my crude “Team
Shed” designs more than the stuff my boss had made
professionally. This provided some artistic validation,
but I was still looking for my own thing. Everything fell
into place somehow when my friend Eric asked me to
teach him how to make paper cut stencils. I stumbled
upon a funny picture of Andre the Giant, and I told Eric
that Team Shed was “played” and he should make a
stencil of Andre so we could be Andre’s “posse”. He
tried to cut the image with an x-acto knife, but aborted
the mission in frustration. I finished the job and wrote,
“Andre the Giant has a Posse” on one side with his
height and weight, 7’4″, 520 lbs., on the other side. The
first Giant sticker was born, with many more to come.
The Andre stickers started as a joke, but I became
obsessed with sticking them everywhere both as a way
to be mischievous and also put something out in the
world anonymously but that I could call my own. Just
as I had been made curious by many of the many
stickers I’d seen, I now had my own sticker to taunt
and/or stimulate the public. The sticker takeover of
Providence only took that summer. The next fall the
local indie paper printed a picture of the sticker offering
a reward to the person who could reveal its source and
meaning. The sticker campaign had worked so quickly
locally, that I decided to strike out for Boston and New
York, both within driving distance. The ball had begun
to roll but the amazing thing is that I almost lacked the
self-confidence to try to put something of my own out
there. I didn’t even think I could make an impact in
Providence and it is somewhat of a fluke that the Giant
sticker stimulated me to try. However, once the first
domino fell, I was addicted and had my sights set on
world domination through stickers.

It amazed me just how liberating and easy stickering

was. At first I would just run off a few hundred stickers
a week at a copy center, using their sticker material.
Then I figured out that I could get sticker material at an
office supply store for half the price. Paper stickers were
good for indoor use, a nightmare to remove, but
weathered too quickly outdoors. I was taking some
screen-printing classes, so I decided to look into making
vinyl stickers. I bought vinyl ink and vinyl from a screen
print supply wholeseller in Boston. The vinyl ink was ill
toxic, but by printing them myself, the vinyl stickers
worked out to be way cheaper than the paper ones. I
also liked the confusion factor with having a low-fi
image printed on the more professional vinyl material.
Every sheet of stickers I printed felt like I was making
the world a little smaller, I mean, all those stickers were
gonna end up somewhere. The only thing that sucked
was cutting the sheets into individual stickers. At first I
used scissors, but then I gave in and bought a paper
cutter and would just watch a movie and cut stickers.
This process of production continued from ’89 to ’96,
yielding over a million hand printed and cut stickers.
When I moved to California, I decided I needed to keep
the brain cells I had left, so I stopped printing with vinyl
ink and started sending my stickers out to a printer.

As my production methods improved, so did my

distribution. I began sending stickers to several
enthusiastic friends who had caught sticker fever.
As my production methods improved, so did my
distribution. I began sending stickers to several
enthusiastic friends who had caught sticker fever. Some
writers only want their stickers to track their actual
footsteps. For example, I printed some stickers for Phil
Frost and he got mad at me for putting them up for
him. Phil got a call from Twist reporting that he’d seen
some Frost stickers in San Francisco and asked if he’d
been there. Phil figured I’d put them up and told me he
only wanted his stickers on the street as a document of
where he’d traveled. I just wanted my stickers to go as
far and wide as possible, so I would supply stickers to
my friends who lived all over the country. I also began
to run cheap classified ads in Slap skateboard magazine
and the punk zine Flipside. The ads just had my images
and said, “Send a self-addressed stamped envelope for
stickers and the lowdown.” I was building a great
grassroots network of people who wanted stickers. The
only problem was that I was losing money on all of the
stickers and ads. The stickers were always intended as
an art project, and part of the charm was that there was
nothing for sale, but I had to make some money back to
keep producing. My solution was to ask for a mandatory
donation of five cents per sticker (a price I basically
maintain for black and white stickers to this day) and to
produce some t-shirts to sell. That’s how my humble
sticker and t shirt business got started. Almost every art
and financial opportunity in my life has stemmed from
my stickers and their poster and stencil relatives.

So, there’s more to my specific experience with stickers

than that, but I’ve also developed a general overview of
the sticker scene and made friends along the way who
have opinions about stickers. Because I’m not an O.G.
graff guy, I had to get the lowdown on stickers in graff
prior to my introduction to the scene in 1989. Who
better an authority to call than Zephyr, one of the
pioneers of wild style graffiti and the man behind the
“Wild Style” movie logo letters. According to Zephyr, no
one in New York bombed stickers back in the day
because piecing and tagging were so much easier then.
Plus, the focus was more on the huge pieces on the
outsides of trains. Zeph says the first stickers that
started popping up a lot were commercially offset
printed stickers that said “Why not?” He says, “The
stickers were annoying but effective. The guy would put
them up all over the runners of the trains. Ask Lee or
any of the writers from that era They’ll remember, Why
not? Even if writers were irritated at first by sticker
guys jocking their spots, eventually stickers became
part of the writer’s arsenal. Zephyr credits Revs and
Cost with really demonstrating the power of the sticker
(and paste-up) mediums in New York, and I would
agree with him. Revs and Cost had mass-produced
stickers and Xeroxed flyers on almost every crosswalk
box in the city between 1991 and 1995. Their level of
coverage was unprecedented, and their irritation to the
city changed clean-up policies, insuring that such
domination could never be achieved again. Revs and
Cost approached promoting themselves through
stickers seemingly less as typical graffiti than as a
brand. They used bold, readable, no-frills type. The
technique may not have been that stylish, but it was
very effective, earning Revs and Cost the distinction of
being two of the only writers whose names were well
known outside of the graffiti community. My approach
definitely takes cues from Revs and Cost, as well as the
worlds of advertising and propaganda. I learned from
Revs and Cost that simplicity and ubiquity can cut
through all the visual noise and urban clutter. I
attempted to take things one step further by using
consistent color stories and icons on multiple sticker
designs to allow people to experience a lot of repetition
mixed with a little diversity to keep things intriguing.

HERE IS WHAT A
FEW OTHER
RELATIVE
AUTHORITIES HAVE
TO SAY ABOUT
STICKERS:

Dalek – Graffiti writer, known for his space

monkeys
#1 Stickers are a great way to meet people.
#2 I like stickers because they are fun to slap all over
the place.
#3 It is a great way to get your imagery out all over the
world.
#4 People love stickers.
#5 I like to collect stickers. They are like toys…or
trading cards.
#6 It’s like getting up.
#7 They look good in bathroom stalls.
#8 They are easier to carry about than a can of flat
black.
#9 I just want to be like Shepard Fairey.
#10 Beats wheat pasting.
#11 They are great for taping up boxes.
#12 Can be used to get the lint off of my black shirts.

Giant One – Graffiti writer and tattoo artist

“I see stickers as one of the many mediums I can use to
get up. The main reason I’ve always liked them is the
fact that I can put them up during the day without
much hassle. They’re also nice because they’re generally
small and quick to apply. I certainly don’t think it’s
important for writers to make stickers, but it can be a
fun medium. Twist made great stickers. Bob Licky
stickers are legendary. Shygirl put up a lot of nice
stickers in SF. Geso used to make big stickers out of a
few smaller ones, which I always thought was a great
idea. I put a few hundred stickers in Japan last week.
BNE was running Tokyo with his stickers. I saw lots of
Andre the Giant stickers too, as expected”.

Roger Gastman – Graffiti writer and

publisher of While You Were Sleeping magazine.
From a graffiti writers stand point. “Stickers are just
another tool in a graffiti writer’s arsenal. Another
medium that works on all most any surface. My sticker
captures the eye of the average person that might not
notice your tags and throw-ups.” from a marketing
stand point “Branding is the most important thing for a
company. It doesn’t matter if the company is a start up
or has been around for 100 years. Logo and name
recognition is invaluable. Stickers create a very
inexpensive and easy way to get that done.”

Dave Kinsey – Artist and graphic designer,

partner in BLKMRKT DESIGN.
“I like stickers because they leave a mark that can affect
a persons mood, cause thought, and inspire a reaction. I
like that my stickers become part of the movement of
the street, absorbed by the population.”

CONCLUSION
Having talked to several people, the general consensus
was that stickers are cheap, effective, and easier and
less risky to put up than tags, throw-ups, etc… However,
opinions differ drastically as to what sticker techniques
are “keepin’ it real”. Some people feel that just like
racking paint, stickers should be stolen. Whether it’s
taking priority mail stickers from the post office, labels
from FedEx or the airlines, or lifting “Hello my name is”
joints from office supply stores, stickers can be acquired
with the only cost being a potential shoplifting record. I
prefer to take my risks installing the actual art, but for
some people shoplifting is just part of the art of getting
over. A lot of graff purists also feel that every sticker
needs to be hand drawn and that printing stickers is
cheating. People like Twist and Zephyr have printed
their own variations of the “Hello my name is” sticker;
Twist’s being an oversized version, Zephyr’s saying, “o
hell my name is”, but they still hand tagged each
sticker. Other people merely use the “Hello my name is”
template as a stylistic nod to graffiti iconography. Jest,
for example, produces a “Who the fuck is jest” screen-
printed sticker which uses old English text where the
tag would normally go. Jest has put his time in, and
doesn’t have to prove his hand style by tagging every
sticker. Some people, like Giant One, just consider
making individual stickers an art form. Giant says,
“Even when I’m just tagging on stickers, I take the time
to make it tight. If I fuck up a tag I throw it in the trash.
Everything I put up on the street should maintain that
level of technical quality, from stickers to wild styles.”
The game with graff is balancing getting up like mad,
with a flavorful delivery. It could be argued that even if
hand made stickers have the flavor, it’s too time
consuming to make enough of them to really crush it.
Some dedicated individuals have proven this incorrect.
Twist always had San Francisco and any other city he
spent more than a couple days in, on handmade sticker
lockdown, not to mention tags and pieces. Pez, a bike
messenger, has crushed every city he’s lived in with tag
stickers. Serch One, Cult crew LA , has a unique method
of using spray paint and stencils with hand tagged
accents on his stickers. His stickers are more up in
every part of Los Angeles than anyone else, graffiti or
commercial. I met him once and asked him how he did
it. He said, “I take the bus.”

The art of stickers isn’t just about what is on them, but

also how they are integrated into the environment. The
most common placement is poles and crosswalk boxes
at eye level. These are also the fastest places to be
cleaned. Climbing a couple feet higher really weeds out
the city workers and vigilante citizens who aren’t
dedicated to their jobs. Slightly bigger stickers are great
for these high spots. Necessity is the mother of
invention, right? I got so sick of my stickers being
peeled that I looked into the kind of vinyl that the
government uses for registration stickers so they can’t
be stolen off of license plates. The stuff is called
destructible vinyl and flakes off in teeny pieces when
you try to peel it. It costs about twice as much but is
very worth it in some cleaner cities. People have come
up with other great ideas like the tags on the adhesive
side of the sticker stuck on the inside of newspaper
boxes facing out. Making stickers that are camouflaged
keeps them running too. In New York, locksmiths put
small contact info stickers in all the doorways. ESPO
made some of his own that blend right in, to most of the
public, but stand out to writers. I have made take offs
subverting the typical “You are under surveillance”
stickers. They look so official; they usually stay up, even
in conspicuous places. I also made fake California
Department of Weights and Measures stickers like the
ones that go on all the gas pumps. They only change
them once a year. The possibilities with sticker
placement are endless.

The fact is, if you want to make stickers but aren’t, then
you’re just lazy. Hand drawn stickers are time
consuming but free. Photocopied stickers can be made
in small quantities, I used to get my fix just making a
couple bucks worth at a time. Offset printed stickers on
a roll with standardized shapes are super cheap if you
do a bunch of them. Screen printed stickers have
expensive set-up costs, but if you split up a sheet with
friends and make only square or rectangular shapes
that don’t have to be die cut, you can bring the cost
down per person, especially when you run volume. Ask
the printers about volume price-breaks. In my opinion,
stickers are the most effective promotional tool possible
for the price. Don’t sleep on ‘em.

Shepard Fairey
May 2003
Published in Graphotism Magazine