L5 summer project - fruitstickers

@fruitstickers

https://www.instagram.com/fruit_stickers/

Stickers are almost virtually everywhere we look, with one of the most recognised being the humble fruit sticker. Fruit stickers on instagram is a page that I follow which serves as a platform to showcase some of the most visually exciting and weird fruit stickers; recently, the account has also posted and shared fruit sticker designs from contemporary artists. The account is a melting pot of crazy colours, typefaces and plenty of anthropomorphised fruits; it drills into this sense of nostalgia that the world loves at the moment, so makes perfect sense that a lot of current designers take inspiration from the stickers posted on this account. 

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/fruit-stickers

The account was created by British graphic designer Kelly Angood, who collects fruit stickers from around the globe. According to an interview with Bon Appetit, the collection of these wonderful stickers was 'never intentional'; over the years she had simply stuck stickers that she found in markets in her sketchbook. This is a perfect example of why I love stickers so much; they have a collective nature to them, and embrace the idea of taking inspiration from unorthodox things within design, whether it be a cowboy banana or a Betty Boop watermelon. 

You can definitely see the influence that fruit stickers has on the design world at the moment, with a lot of illustrators playing with cartoons and anthropomorphic fruit and veg. I personally love this illustration style, and it is something I have gotten into a lot over lockdown/ summer. An illustrator that I really love who takes a lot of inspiration from fruit stickers is Aga Giecko; her work plays with these fun little characters and uses a multitude of colours to develop a nostalgic feel. 

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/surprising-artistry-of-fruit-stickers

The first person to put stickers on fruit on a commercial scale was Tom Mathison; he put stickers on his apples to brand them, with a ladybug design to signal their organic origin. Kelly Angood credits the fruit sticker as a sign of 'quality and consistency with that grower'. 

Fruit stickers nowadays contain more forms of regulation, with PLU codes set by the International Federation of Produce Standards. Due to this, stickers found in supermarkets and more regulated places lack elaborate designs, which means most of the fruit stickers collected by Angood are found in the least regulated areas. 

Angood has also noticed regional trends within fruit stickers. For example, growers in South America put their youngest child on the fruit. Some designs in the Philippines rip off existing logos such as Rolex bananas in order to draw attention.