StickTogether stickers up Play Fair
Sylvia Stein at the StickTogether Play Fair booth
StickTogether Products’ monster sticker mosaic puzzle posters were on display bigtime last weekend at the Play Fair toy and pop culture event at the Javits Center, fully living up to the company slogan “Stick Together: “Creating colorful collaborations, one sticker at a time.”
Standing in front of StickTogether stock including Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Peace and Balloons entries, co-founder/creator Sylvia Stein noted that each of the standard format mosaic posters (40” x 36”) comprises 3,996 half-inch square stickers while the large format (60” x 36”) versions tallying 7,040—both with five percent extra stickers provided to cover any accidental losses.
Besides the stickers, the StickTogether kits come with a coded poster grid, color key and instructions—and suggestions for staging a fun StickTogether group experience. Indeed, Stein lauded the “group activity,” “collaborative art” aspects of her “intergenerational, family gathering” kits, which encourage “device-free hangout time” for groups of all ages and settings of all kinds.
The time it takes to complete a StickTogether mosaic depends on the size of the group—and how long members stick with it. With the average “stickerer” applying 10-to-12 stickers per minute, three-to-five participants can finish a Standard Format image in less than three hours. But at a family gathering of 32 relatives, with five children working continuously and adults circling in an out, it took an entire evening to complete a Large Format image.
Then again, in an office of 100 and the StickTogether image placed in the breakroom, a Standard Format mosaic took three days to complete, while a Standard Format image in a bone marrow transplant unit took 19 days, with the patients adding stickers each time they passed by during recovery walks.
Stein said that StickTogether came together six years ago as a reaction against “just shopping and buying.”
“People like making things,” she said, noting the influence on her conception of the “Maker movement” and the huge Maker Faire festivals celebrating the movement's focus on invention, creativity and resourcefulness.
StickTogether at Maker Faire
Of her own making, there are some 20 StickTogether kits available, breaking down by “Core” collection (including the Balloons image), “Masterpiece” (paintings like Mona Lisa), “Large Format” and “Holiday” collections.
Also available are Custom StickTogether kits, whereby customers can email their own photographs and artwork to be converted into StickTogether images.