L5 summer project - the history of the sticker

 A brief history into the sticker

Stickers are so ingrained into our everyday lives, with stickers on packaging, advertisements, politics and publications; but where did they actually come from - and for what purpose?

https://stkrs.co.uk/history-of-the-sticker/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6-hY_eRHI0&feature=youtu.be

The history of stickers traces back to the 1700's with the invention of stamps; arguably, this invention is loosely under the umbrella term of a 'sticker', but by many is considered the first example of sticker production. The development of stamp stickers were actually used in the stamp act for American Colonies, which was a contributing factor to the American Revolutionary war. 

In the 1800s Britain was the first country to develop the first prepay stamp called the Penny Black, which increased postal revenue. Black and white lithography was used to produce these stamps, which was later developed to colour printing with new technology. 1895 saw more colourful stamps, which were adopted in the name of advertising.

However, the modern day sticker was developed by a man nicknamed 'Stan the Sticker Man' (a very cool nickname I must say) in 1935. Stan birthed the first sticker making machine, using self adhesive paper, motors and a sewing machine. The launch of Stans' 'Avery Labels' across America, stickers were channelled into everyday use. Alongside this, the modern day sticker was improved to have the peel off paper that we know today, which was a result of the mass production of the sticker following Stans' invention. 

The rise in popularity of the sticker came about in the 1940s and 50s, with companies using the sticker for advertising, which had more of a knock on effect for the everyday branding purposes of stickers that we know today. Forest Gill was the first man to develop bumper stickers (I will do a separate post on this later), through using vinyl that was durable enough to last on cars without fading. 

Throughout the 60s and 70s stickers became more and more decorative and playful, like the ones we know today; this sparked the rise in sticker collecting, with more people keeping decorative stickers for their scrapbooks and what-not. This rise in sticker collecting pushed the tv and film industry to capitalise on merchandise for franchises etc. 

Moving on to the present day, the tactile aspects of stickers have evolved massively; with loads of different vinyl types available, and even weirder things like fluffy stickers, glow in the dark and the beloved scratch and sniff stickers. 

So thankyou very much Stan the Sticker Man - without you and your stickers, the world would be a very sad place.