"Post no bills,” goes the old directive, often seen stenciled on the temporary walls enclosing urban construction sites and the like. Nonetheless, they’re everywhere. A long-ago acquaintance recalled seeing a similar stenciled edict in London: Bill stickers will be prosecuted.
“Who’s Bill Stickers?” they’d innocently asked.
The posting of bills — flyers and posters and announcements — remains an essential, if legally questionable, means of advertising on a budget. But the convenience of the sticker — on one side a message often conveyed via eye-catching graphic design, on the other an adhesive for quick and easy application to most any surface — is tough to beat for getting the word out cheaply.
Individually, stickers can be seen as Pop art, often featuring clever and creative graphics in the service of promotion, be it a brand, a band, an event, whatever is being publicized. Collectively, they can form a kind of crowd-sourced work of art, too.
From Montauk to Bangkok, it’s a great big, weird world out there, but with a sticker and a bit of imagination, the world comes right to your bar, or newspaper box, or pizza joint. Still, we are suddenly overcome with wanderlust, and an all-consuming desire to design and print stickers. Lots and lots of stickers.
Corner Bar, Sag Harbor
On the South Fork, examples abound of stickers’ sometimes deceptively simple messaging. One of the highest expressions, if you will, of this is found in the men’s room at the Corner Bar in Sag Harbor, where, well above eye level, three large mirrors are all but completely covered with stickers of varying shapes and sizes. Fitting for this onetime whaling port, the subject matter spans the globe. Z and G Patio in Memphis is “where friends & family gather,” according to its private Facebook group. “We love our patio, its [sic] our go to happy place even in the winter when weather
allows,” the page states. “Mermaids and Beach Bums are Always welcome.”
The Paumanok Stompers, a band “bringing traditional New Orleans jazz to Long Island,” is featured in a corner of one mirror. Just above them is REEB, or Real East End Brass, a popular local group of musicians and educators that, like the Paumanok Stompers, takes inspiration from the music of the Big Easy. Also like their stomping brethren, their logo features a trumpet. Satchmo would approve.
There’s Big Hart Brewing Company of Hart, Mich. “At Big Hart Brewing Company our mission is to provide the best beer, the finest in fresh local food and excellent service.”
Not to be outdone and a bit closer to home is the Valcour Brewing Company, housed in Plattsburgh’s Old Stone Barracks, the last remaining structure of an early United States Army barracks and where Lt. Ulysses S. Grant once stayed.
Something of a theme developing: The Cabin, in Park City, Utah, is a bar, restaurant, and live music venue known for its fictional mascot, “the Elkupine.” His name is Al.
Even farther afield, one of the more striking designs on a Corner Bar men’s room mirror advertises Lucy’s Tiger Den, which a Los Angeles Times article says since 1971 “has been the place in Bangkok for Vietnam vets, oil workers, war lovers, and journalists.” Alas, the article, from 1987, was about the imminent closure of Lucy’s, as its Oakdale, Calif.-born owner (“his arms are bone thin and half his right leg has been amputated”) was planning to relocate to the Philippines.
For some needed balance, the Dawgpatch Bandits, a nonprofit organization, promotes endorphin-activating physical challenges, builds outdoor community projects that promote health and fitness, and supports those struggling with addiction.
The sticker of Florida’s Cocoa Beach Surf Company depicts a Gumby-esque surfer who looks late for some rad waves, perhaps. Surfboards and paddleboards, beach cruisers and e-bikes, beach chairs and umbrellas — these folks have everything.
Montauk Sun Newspaper Box, Montauk
A plastic yellow box for the Montauk Sun on Main Street in Montauk is plastered on all sides with stickers.
“I’m a dog groomer,” one announces. “I solve problems you don’t know you have in ways you can’t understand.” The included Instagram handle leads to dozens of adorable and impeccably coiffed canines.
@WarnerJesse, depicting a six-eyed being devouring pasta, is the Instagram handle of Jesse Warner, photographer. Warner’s Instagram depicts a lot of people consuming a lot of food.
Montauk’s own Camp Soulgrow, a nonprofit workshop camp for kids, takes its logo to an extreme that almost defies description. While it may violate graphic design’s cornerstone principles of legibility and readability, its extravagant lines, stars, and . . . is that a halo? . . . make it shine among a sea of competing messages.
All the way from Valley Stream, Bosco Customs offers a range of automotive services focused on rare and modified classic cars, along with detailing of same. Bosco cars are offered for event and party appearances, photo shoots, and commercial and marketing ventures.
Dive Bar Pizza, Montauk
At Montauk’s docks, the walls of Dive Bar Pizza are almost saturated with scrawled, sometimes-legible words and names and, outside, there is no shortage of sticker-based memoranda. One of the larger ones advertises Mtk Surf TV, a YouTube channel with more than 140 video offerings depicting, you guessed it, surfing.
Far from its headquarters, Bushwick Print Lab is an artist-run silkscreen studio. Along with silkscreen printing and screen services, it offers film printing, DIY space rental, and live location printing for events of all kinds. But do they print stickers?
The logo of ZOOZ Bikes is a lightning bolt inside a closed fist, as though grabbed from the sky. "We've designed not just a bike," the company asserts, "but an experience to revive your inner wild-child, your inner thrill-seeker."
