Remix the City: Sticker Project — Strategy with Stickers

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I considered Chip Kidd’s statement that “graphic design is problem-solving” (Kidd 2) while strategizing this sticker process. He points out that there’s so much visual “noise” everywhere that we often need a speed bump to get people’s attention because it demands the mental participation of those. Thinking about Shepard Fairey, I also kept repetition in mind since this is a useful visual strategy for propaganda and campaigns.

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For that reason, I felt like I wanted to engage places where people look but not necessarily expecting art. For example, places like the name tags next to doors, the vending machine, the outside of bathroom doors, just above the water fountain, etc.

I felt really weird putting up stickers. I felt like I was doing a bad thing, and that other students would stop me. I readied these explanations, like “No, it’s temporary. It’s for a class. I have to do this.” I come from a Philly-background of unapologetically applying stickers to newspaper bins, and yet it felt so awkward and unwelcoming to adorn my art building with stickers. I put up a sticker on the gallery door and I felt especially uncomfortable doing that.

A few people came up to me at various points in the following days telling me that they had seen my stickers in the building, and again I felt the need to explain myself like “I promise I’m not vandalizing/street-arting our building,” even though these comments were out of appreciation. I guess it was a challenge for me to break my notion of context, like maybe I feel like graffiti is reserved for specific spaces, and fine art is reserved for other spaces.

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