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Interview: Strawberry Moon Creatives
Chey from Strawberry Moon Creatives makes awesomely cute (and sometimes creepy) sticker designs as well as digital art prints. Check out the interview below and scoop up some stickers and art for yourself!
How did you come up with the name Strawberry Moon Creatives?
Coming up with “Strawberry Moon Creatives” was actually a whole process. I decided to rebrand myself in 2020 for a school project and I wanted to take art seriously so I really wanted this name to stick. The school project was to come up with a name that would signify something relatable to me as a person and we also had to create a logo that went along with it. My birthday month is in June and the moon that is associated with June is actually the Strawberry Moon. What makes this even better is that I am obsessed with strawberries and I have it printed on pretty much anything that you can think about…and I even have it tattooed on myself as well! I didn’t really want my actual name in brand name just in case anyone wanted to join in with me and be a partnership, so that is where “creatives” came from.
Cute Sayings Die Cut Sticker Set | Hydroflask Bujo Journal Scrapbook Sticker Can you tell me a little about your (obviously inspired by Pantone) Moontone swatch series?
I take a lot of my inspiration from Instagram and other social media sites to see what people are working on creatively. One day I was scrolling through my feed and found the Pantone social media account. I was inspired by some of their color names and thought it would be really cool to create different art prints using their color names. I wanted to keep each one unique but make sure they all had a similar vibe. Each one of them has the actual color used in the piece and I love each and every one of them. In terms of the name “Moontone”, obviously for “Moon” in my name and I thought it would be a personal and cool spin on something a little more mundane.
Wild Strawberry Moontone 8×10 Print | Digital Art, StrawberryMoonCreatives Do you remember your first sticker design? What was it and what inspired it?
I do actually remember one of my very first designs. It was actually part of a collection of vintage cars that had some hippie flowers and designs on it. There was nothing that actually inspired me to make them but what I will talk about is the design that really kicked off sticker making for me. The very next design that I had made was a Harry Styles one that had a working Spotify link to his song “Watermelon Sugar.” At this point I was solely selling on Etsy and wasn’t really making a lot of sales. I decided to promote it a bit more on Instagram and paid for some marketing and the next thing I knew, that sticker was my best seller for the next 4 years. Crazy! I do tend to go back and forth between artist designs, anime designs and also original designs here and there so it is good to have a healthy mix of things!
What is your process and what tools do you use for designing stickers?
Most of my process is the same for a lot of my stickers. All of my designs, I draw on my iPad using Procreate. I mostly make die cut stickers so everything is drawn on there. For any of the ones that have added text to them, I bring that illustration into Illustrator and add any final touches before I go to outsource to print them. I do not have a solid printing system at home so I outsource my printing for stickers through StickerApp (cause I do not gatekeep), and the quality is great and I have never had a problem ordering stickers from them and they always have good turnaround times.
Do you have a favorite sticker you’ve designed and why is it your fave?
Well, you see there. That is a loaded question! But! I actually have an answer to that! One of the designs that I had actually made recently has turned out to be one of my favorites! My Balloon Dog sticker is my favorite because of the detail and the way the pink pops on the glossy surface of the sticker. There was no rhyme or reason when I had drawn it, I just wanted to make something fun and when it came printed when I ordered the stickers, it was definitely a crowd favorite!
Balloon Dog Glossy Die Cut Sticker Can you let us in on anything new and exciting you have coming up in the world of stickers or just in general?
In terms of anything new, I can say that in 2025 I want to increase the amount of markets and vending events in the area to share my stickers with more people and not solely sell online because sometimes marketing costs a lot more money then what you actually sell, especially with cheaper stationary products. I have 3-4 vending events that you can come visit me at in the Jersey Shore area! (depending on where you are located!)
How can people follow you and reach you for purchasing stickers or commissioning designs from you?
I am mostly active on Instagram if you want to reach me directly! I have a Linktree in there for all of my other socials and even a newsletter that you can join if you want to keep up on the newest scoop before the gram does! Through my portfolio site, you can also find my services for custom stickers, logo creation and other things! I see most emails timely but don’t forget! I still work a 9-5 and do this as a side hustle but I have been doing a bunch of custom creations so do not be afraid to reach out!
More at: strawberrymooncreatives.com/shop
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I’m Going ALL-NATION
The first time I heard the phrase “going all-city” was watching the 1983 graffiti documentary Style Wars when a young writer SKEME (I believe it was) explained the term. Graffiti writers in New York City would work hard and risk a run-in with the law or other writers to get their tags up in all five boroughs to achieve this notable feat. When I was thinking about the idea of going all-city and what it meant back then in the context of tagging, I also started thinking about what is possible now in the digital age with things like social media and using stickers as a form of tagging. Back then writers would use whatever was available to them to get their tags up – spray paint, homemade markers, carbon paper and blackboard erasers, even shoe polish. I had this idea of using what’s available now and going all-nation by sending my stickers to other sticker artists I connect with through social media and tracking where they go up to get one up in every US state. If you would like to participate in this fun experiment, shoot me an email at dave@davetoo.com or DM on Instagram at @davetoostickers and I’ll send you a few of my stickers and my address for you to send me a few of yours. I’ll post your pics and tag you on Instagram, so be sure to include your IG handle if you email.
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André the Giant has a Posse Tributes
George the Pug Multum in Parvo by Shepard Fairey Several years ago I worked collaboratively on a PEEL has a Posse project and asked people to submit their posse tribute designs. We got over two hundred submissions and printed many of them in a book and made sticker packs of the best designs. Some of the designs we meant to publish were lost in the shuffle, but I’m making this post to show a number of the submissions we received hopefully including the ones that were never published with more being added soon.
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TAKI 183 HMNI Label
HELLO MY NAME IS hand drawn label by TAKI 183 I just recently received this bad boy in the mail from Beyond the Streets. It’s an oversized hand drawn HELLO MY NAME IS label by TAKI 183.
I’ve been collecting stickers since I was a kid and street stickers since about 2002 and this is now one of my most prized stickers. The significance of this particular sticker is that it’s well known that TAKI 183 is considered by many to be the first graffiti writer to go all city back in the early days of graffiti in New York in the early 1980s, meaning having one’s tag or pieces up in all five boroughs at the same time. What many people may not know is that it is rumored that TAKI 183 may have been the first graffiti writer to use stickers, particularly HMNI labels as a form of graffiti by tagging them before putting them up on the streets.
I haven’t been able to successfully verify that TAKI was the first writer to use HMNI stickers for slap tagging, but this is still a super cool piece either way.
If you’re not familiar with TAKI 183, you can read more about him at his site, taki183.net.
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PickTheStickers.com
A few months ago I stumbled onto this project PickTheStickers.com that combines everything cool about the old days of Threadless’s t-shirt design competitions with many things I love about stickers. It’s a new community of sticker enthusiasts and sticker artists and in my opinion, it’s just what the worldwide sticker community needs right now.
It’s a subscription-based service where you get a sticker pack of six artist-designed vinyl stickers in the mail every month for $11. If you’re a subscriber you have the option to submit your own sticker design and then for approximately one month you and the other subscribers get to vote on the winning top three designs. Those three winning designs are produced and you get two of each design for a total of six stickers sent to you in a nifty little sticker pack. Also, the winning designers get paid $.75 for each pack sold.
I submitted my SPRAYMONSTER Pizza sticker design for the first month’s competition, voted every day, and won first place. Woohoo!
SPRAYMONSTER Pizza stickers and a version of the painting they’re based on I’ve reached out to the good peeps at PickTheStickers and they’ve agreed to be interviewed for my blog where hopefully we can get the 411 on what plans they have in store for their project so stay tuned for that.
Check out PickTheStickers.com and jump in on the stickery fun.
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Welcome to my sticker blog.
A long time ago people started asking me where to get their stickers printed. I said someday I would make a website to send them to so I could share my sticker knowledge and well, that day has finally arrived. I hope you’ll enjoy my blog, and feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions. You can email me here.