These Photos Prove That Stickers Are the Best Records of Pop Culture

It's believed that stickers date back to the ancient world, where Egyptian stallholders would advertise rates on single-use papyrus fixed to mud-brick walls using whatever leftover animal part was gooiest that day.

As mercantile capitalism exploded in the 19th Century, traders started using brightly-coloured labels to distinguish their soap and fruit.

Then in 1935, Ray Stanton Avery invented pressure-sensitive adhesives. Avery lived in a rented chicken coop in college and used to help out the homeless folks in Los Angeles’ depression-era skid row. He used a $100 loan from his future wife to fund his invention and initially called his company Kum Kleen Products. It was quickly changed to Avery Adhesives.

Visitors to Tennessee in the 1940s would often come back to their vehicles to find a sticker encouraging people to “See Rock City” on the rear fender, placed there by local authorities with an appetite for innovation and no regard for vehicular consent. As technology improved to produce non-fading vinyl-backed stickers, people used them to broadcast their opinions on everything from politics to personal happiness on the road.

Today, anyone under 50 who has a car, laptop, or skateboard without stickers either just bought it new or has a commitment to austerity and minimalism that makes people avoid them at parties.

Low-cost, on-demand printing has transformed stickers from a promotional or functional tool into a platform for a complex matrix of subcultural signals that make statements like “I’m super-into black metal,” “I object to boomers destroying the plant,” and “I will shoehorn a Rick and Morty reference into literally any conversation.”

For DJ and co-founder of Singapore’s Revision Music Anaiz Majid, stickers are both a business marketing tool and a method of self-expression.

Organised events pay homage to one of street art’s most enduring and underappreciated forms. These include SLAP!, the biggest sticker show in the world, and Control Chaos: 25 Years of PHUNK, an exhibition celebrating internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary collective PHUNK.

Digital marketplaces like Redbubble and TeePublic are online platforms where artists and designers can upload and sell their own stickers. This is made possible via a print-on-demand model which enables a more efficient process. Redbubble also connects artists with a large global customer base and an expansive third party fulfilment network, so that artists can focus on doing what they love: creating designs.

Rob Price, an environmental scientist and designer, who is also known as Wanungara, creates political and environmental designs inspired by warning labels.

“A lot of people have written to me thanking me for making [the stickers]. I feel really happy they make a difference to people and help inspire them to communicate about these issues. Some people buy ten of each and stick them around, when I hear that, I feel like my mission is being accomplished,” Price said.

For Singapore designer Teo Chong Wah, stickers provide a creative outlet that helps with boredom, and is a great tool to connect with other artists.

“For me, stickers are a great way to get my designs out on the streets. Trading stickers is also a great ice breaker, and you get to make a lasting impression among street artists with something physical to keep,” said Teo.

The collision between digital and analogue worlds has opened new directions for the sticker, as more artists than ever before drive forward an art form that sits at the crossroads of advertising, commerce, street art, and counterculture.

It seems fitting that the guy who lived in a chicken coop and hung around with the homeless invented a tool that allows one generation after another to express their political and social conscience.