A sticker is an English word that translates into Russian as a “sticker”. So you can use both names, the meaning will be the same. Everyone has been familiar with stickers since childhood, and everyone knows that they are colored pictures on different topics. They were collected, exchanged.
Now, no self-respecting social network can do without stickers. Their popularity is gaining momentum, more and more heroes are appearing, illustrators are happy to draw them and many are successfully selling them. In this regard, some may have questions: where did they come from, where else do they use them, how to draw a sticker yourself and on what Internet resources can it be placed?
History and uses
For starters, it's worth talking about printed stickers. They appeared in America in the 80s. The first home-made stickers were from mailing labels that had enough empty space to draw a picture or make an inscription. Then they were cut out and pasted.
In the modern world, stickers are used for different purposes. They are printed and used for branding products or just for fans to glue color pictures everywhere.
Basically they are made on a vinyl basis. This makes them quite resistant to environmental influences. Stickers do not fade or get wet. This is especially convenient when they are used for advertising or informational purposes, for example for branding cars.
Stickers can have a wide range of topics, from popular memes, movie characters, TV shows or video games to pictures expressing emotions, a person’s state, or some kind of information message. One way or another, beautiful painted stickers definitely attract attention.
Sticker art
By the way, there is art sticking, the so-called sticker art, or sticker bombing. The bottom line is to glue (or "bomb") the stickers on a game joystick, laptop or even a car. Perhaps at first it was done to disguise something, but later it grew into a whole direction in art.
In European cities, there is also street sticker art, when colored pictures are used to seal posts, walls of houses, and so on. Pictures can be either thematic, topical, or not carry any semantic load at all, but simply successfully match in color. Usually catchy inscriptions in capital letters are added to them.
The most unusual way to use stickers is to create paintings from them. Some artists use them as material, instead of paints. In this way, for example, portraits are created, which are a collage of many stickers.
Social Media Stickers
As for social networks, small bright pictures there are of particular popularity. Almost all social networks and instant messengers (from the English word message - "message") have their own sets of stickers, and not all of them are free. They replaced emoticons, and are able to more clearly and more clearly express emotions in correspondence. Sometimes they can replace words or entire sentences in a chat.
The very first stickers appeared in the Japanese messenger LINE in 2011. These were two simple characters - the Koni rabbit and the Brown bear. They instantly won the hearts of users. Over time, other heroes began to appear. Now stickers can be found on popular Telegram, Viber, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, VKontakte and so on. By the way, on Facebook they are free and there are a huge number of them.
For many, the word sticker is associated with the VKontakte network. There they began to be used since 2014. This social network is very actively popularizing its sticker packs. There are several free kits, but most are paid. There appear thematic sets dedicated to events (Cosmonautics Day, football championships) or to attract attention to new functions. The sticker "Fox" refers to them, drawn specifically to familiarize users with the new "History" section.
Telegram stickers
The Telegram messenger is becoming more and more popular. This is a resource created for communication, it is widely used stickers. Anyone can make and add their own there. They will be available to all users. For example, you can draw cat stickers. As practice shows, most people love cats.
Placed pictures must meet the basic criteria. Their size should be strictly 512x512 pixels, PNG format, on white, and best of all on a transparent background, weight should not exceed 350 Sq.
How to add them to Telegram?
If you figured out how to draw a sticker and you already have some ready-made, send them to Telegram and share with friends. To do this, you need to do the following. Find the bot in the contacts, which is referred to as @Stickers. He will explain in detail the order of your actions. You will see a set of commands for work. The newpack team will prompt you to come up with and enter a name for your stickerpack. After which you should select and add the smiley that most closely matches your first picture, and attach this picture. And so in order for all images. After all the pictures are uploaded, you can publish them using the publish command. Enter the short name again for your kit and get a link where it will be available for download.
DIY stickers
If you have a desire to make stickers of your own production, then the easiest way is to draw pictures directly on self-adhesive paper. Stickers drawn in pencil can be painted with markers or colored pens, circling the image along the contour. Place pictures at some distance from each other.
Then cut the finished image along the contour and attach it anywhere. But such stickers have significant drawbacks, and this method is only good as a trial or home use. Since self-adhesive paper is not durable and it is difficult to put hand-drawn stickers on the stream, there are other, alternative ways.
How to draw a sticker and which editors to use?
Today, there are many graphic editors and applications that provide artists and designers with the opportunity to create their own stickers. The most convenient programs are Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Paint Tool SAI, Corel Draw, Manga Studio. Basically, such pictures are drawn in a vector using bright and catchy colors.
Of course, such a modern gadget as a graphic tablet is a very useful thing for an artist, but you can draw in computer programs without it. The following video can tell about how to draw stickers in stages, without using a graphics tablet.
You may not have a tablet, but imagination and elementary drawing skills should be. Choosing a good theme that would look good as stickers is not so difficult, the main thing is to monitor what is now at the peak of popularity.
How to draw stickers in Photoshop?
First you need to think about how and where the sticker will be used, for printing or on the Internet. The size of the image that you set will depend on this. The work area should be enough for the contour. In the settings for the image, you must select the CMYK color mode, a resolution of 300 dpi.
If the sticker is drawn for printing, then it should have a white outline of a few millimeters. It can be done in the following way. Once on the layer with the picture, double-click on it and in the "Layer Style" window select "stroke". It should be white, and make the width at your discretion, depending on the size of the planned sticker.
You need to save the finished file for printing in PDF format, which is the printing standard in most countries. And for posting on the Internet, PNG is the appropriate format.
How to sell your stickers on the Internet?
If the question of how to draw a sticker, but how to sell, is more relevant for you, then pay attention to the following online sites. For example, the Russian online Parazitakusok sticker store allows artists to post their stickers and receive a percentage of their sales. There are strict rules for the design of pictures, but their number for placement in the store is not limited. You can try your hand at the English-language site Redbubble. There is a large section devoted to this topic. The Russian community of No Kids Stickers often hosts themed contests for the best sticker.
You can try to offer your pictures to the VKontakte administration. They should correspond to emotions or popular memes, be bright and easily understood. If they are approved, then they will offer you cooperation. Also, "VKontakte" sometimes there are sticker contests in which anyone can participate.