Stickers. Whether it be sticking them on car windows, or getting a gold star for a job well done, stickers have been a key contributor to many childhood wonders. But stickers didn’t end after the first grade, now more than ever stickers are gaining popularity and are a sticky situation you want to be in.
Symbolizing anything from vacations to favorite movies, stickers are used to express oneself or even add joy to the more boring aspects of life. Many have grown into collecting stickers because they show the memories people have made. This year to celebrate individuality, the DGS yearbook will include stickers for students to collect and decorate their yearbooks with.
“The yearbook theme and cover the year lends itself to customization. So we wanted to design a couple of stickers for students to pick from and add them to their yearbook cover to make it their own,” art teacher Katherine O’Truk said when asked about yearbooks’ new experience with creating stickers.
Yearbook isn’t the only one experimenting with stickers though. Freshman Saara Raheja shares her experience getting intro sticker making and allowing her creativity to flow in different forms.
“A lot of the time you’re doing activities and it’s a fun way to showcase all of the work you’ve done because then you can share them with other people. Stickers are something everyone uses and so it was just fun to use sticker creating as a way to help people,” Raheja said.
Stickers, as a whole, provide creative expression, but for many, the process of creating a sticker allows for much more individuality. They get to personalize what they create and how it relates to themselves and others.
Filled with positive messages to bring smiles to people’s faces, stickers are serving people in more ways than just self-expression.
Stickers come in all shapes and sizes and can mean a multitude of different things. Parking tickets or bumper stickers of little sticker figure families all show significance in one way or another, whether that be positive or negative. But for most people, stickers allow them to be proud, as they can display what makes them special or unique. Junior Emily Hines gives insight into why she enjoys collecting stickers and displaying them for the people around her.
“I like the stickers that have good memories attached to them, like when I get them with my friends and we have matching ones, or when I get stickers from colleges or fun places I’ve traveled to. Sometimes you even get stickers from organizations you are a part of like clubs or teams so it’s like showing pride for that,” Hines said.
While stickers hold a lot of memories and meaning to most people, sometimes they are just fun to have.
“They don’t serve much of a purpose other than putting them on your water bottle and stuff. But also, it’s fun to do them for inside jokes and those types of things because I’ve done that before and I love that,” Raheja said.
“I think in the most basic way it helps you identify what your stuff is and then you can use it to really show your personality. For the stickers we are looking at for the yearbook, we’re trying to make sure we have a variety of different things represented. That way, students can choose ones that represent the most important stuff to them,” O’Truk said.
Even today, stickers are going back to their core function of incentive. Just like in kindergarten, stickers are being given out for a job well done, or a prize. Not only are they working to share a positive message, but stickers keep morale high throughout life.
“I know lots of departments have made stickers too, but I am always happy to collaborate with students to bring more fun stickers to DGS as prizes to bring smiles to people’s faces. Plus it is just nice to have free stickers that celebrate our core values such as the various You Belong Here stickers that were also used as giveaways,” Student Activities Director Jennifer Martinez said.
Being five years old and slapping stickers on the window of your mom’s minivan is a memory most people share, the only difference now is that we are slapping stickers on computers and water bottles. The gold stars and smiley faces brought joy in the early years, and stickers are still providing that joy no matter how old you are. And for the record, people are still slapping stickers on their cars, who cares if they’re called “bumper stickers” now?
