Sharing the buzz on custom stickers--branding and marketing, street art, graphic design, guerilla marketing and more.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Stickers That Keep it Straight: The Eyebox Organizer

With a number of different pairs of contact lenses, Sharena Walker had a hard time keeping them all straight. That's because contact lenses--whether prescription or decorative (colored)--typically come in vials printed with all their pertinent information, and when those lenses get transferred to a case, all that information gets thrown out.

What to do? Keep all those empty vials cluttering the medicine cabinet? Open every case and try to figure out which pair is which? Sharena had a better idea: a compact jewel-case organizer which would not only keep all those lens cases neatly organized but which would identify them, via a simple system of (what else?) stickers. 

Her innovative invention--the first offering of her new business, Lovely Ideas--is the Eyebox. To use, you simply place a colored sticker on the bottom of a contact lens case and a sticker of the same color next to a line on the Record Keeper, a card that fits neatly in the bottom of the box. Record the info specific to those lenses--brand, color, purchase information, date, cost, expiration information, sphere, base curve, and diameter--and voila! No more wondering, and no more fumbling. 



In creating the Eyebox, Sharena ordered sticker samples from three other companies. Custom Sticker Makers won because of the quality/price ratio. "These little round stickers needed to adhere to the type of plastic used for most contact lens cases," Sharena told us. "They had to be durable, very sticky, and water resistant. CSM stickers fared above the others and won my business."








Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Stuff We Like: Stickers for the Holidays, Part 1

When you think of stickers as Christmas presents, chances are, you're thinking of stocking stuffers. But this holiday season, we ask that you think a little bigger in terms of what stickers can do for the kids in your life--a lot  bigger.

From Yoda with a light saber to Tinkerbell, space-rockets, dump-trucks and fairy-tale castles, there's not much in the way of childhood obsessions that are not available as a mural-sized repositionable wall-sticker, it seems, as far as Wall Sticker Outlet goes. We're especially fond of this t-rex busting through the wall, though we're not sure it's suitable for kids who wake up at night scared of the boogie man.

Wall Sticker Outlet offers everything from single character stick-ons to full-scene murals, available in Girls Themes and Boys Themes, as well as more mural-oriented wall-stickers aimed at adults. There are also stick-on chalkboard options.

These wall-stickers will run you anywhere between $17 for a single character to $325 for a giant wall mural, just in time for the holidays.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Taking It to the Streets: One Street Helps Bike Groups Help Others

One Street is a nonprofit organization based right here in Custom Sticker Makers' hometown of Prescott, Arizona, but their mission is global in scope--to lift bicycling to the forefront of society around the world by helping bike organizations help others. 

One Street was founded in September 2007 by Sue Knaup, a long-time bicycle advocate at the local, national and international levels. The name came from an idea she had at the age of six on a family trip when she realized that one street connects to other streets and, if the world is round, never ends.

Since then, with the help of advisors ranging from leaders of large and small non-profits and government agencies to corporate CEOs, One Street has helped a women's center offer bike repair job training skills in Uganda, sponsored the manufacture of bikes internationally in disadvantaged areas (with funding from the bike-friendly Ft. Collins-based New Belgium Brewing Company), created a Bed and Bike website listing bike-friendly overnight accommodations in North America, and much, much more.

The One Street logo combines an image of the world with a peace sign and the letters O and S in a kind of continuous street, and stickers bearing this logo have become an important way for the organization to promote the essence of its mission in what Sue describes as "a really cool and simple form." She reports that she's seen them on the bikes, brief cases and backpacks of strangers passing her in different parts of the world.

Why Custom Sticker Makers? The answer is simple enough. "I like you guys," said Sue. "You do great work and you’re right here in town."

Monday, December 6, 2010

Laptop Stickers Pimp Your MacBook (Logo)

We all know Mac enthusiasts are a little different. Now there's a way for them to show the world (and each other) just how different they are, by pimping their Macbooks with laptop stickers from StickWithMeBaby.

StickWithMeBaby is a collection of laptop stickers designed to personalize the apple logo on your MacBook with into something resembling a cartoon head. Each of these heads have plenty of attitude, and come in three distinct categories: Bros, Hos, and Mos.

(While women everywhere will certainly take issue with the title of the second category, there's no denying, it's got a certain ring to it. There's also no denying that these stickers are hilarious.)

The Creepy Uncle

The Horny Librarian
The Stick With Me Baby line of laptop stickers for the Mac is the brainchild of Herraizsoto&Co, an independent creative agency based in Barcelona that's done work for folks like IKEA and BMW.  Stickers are interchangeable, low-tac, and will run you around $10 a piece (8 Euro).