Absurdism is meant to show us the exceptional in the familiar. It takes our assumptions about spaces, people, and things and plays with them to show us what is possible, or why what we have is already so valuable.

The locals borrows that idea and uses it in our most familiar places, our city, our town, our neighbourhood, our home. It's an invitation to play and to imagine, a light hearted jab at the edges of what is possible.

Nonsense, you say! You're damn right. Enjoy the nonsense, and stop making sense!

Queer Dangerous, Neurotribes, and Like a Grrrl are all part of the "Danger Signs" theme. These warning signs parody and reframe excusionary rhetoric. They represent those with identities that are vilified, denigrated, or blamed for social woes. This is often for the mere fact of existing in public space and conciousness, or holding society to account.

Through the semiotics of safety notices and public signage it points to the absurdity of theses attacks and reclaims the public realm.

Gays ruining the moral fabric of society? Feminists destroying "traditional" family values? TikTok autistics ruining your feed? Reds under the bed? Trans in the jacks? Eco warriors up the tree? There's a sticker for that... and if not yet, there will be. X

More than just stories science fiction is also often a parable, not just about the future, but also about the present it came from. Sometimes it's full of hope, sometimes it's dark and laiden with anxiety.

Some of my favourite sci-fi series, or episodes, are the silly, fun, playful or surreal ones. Even within tales of the empire, or federation, or colonys, they found time to laugh at themselves.

This series will hopefully grow to reference a lot of different shows. From the sobriety of Trek, the variety of The Twilight Zone, the world building of The Expanse, and the beautiful madness of The Prisoner, these are a few of my favourite things.

I'm John, an artist and designer from Dublin, Ireland. I like to make things with my hands. I also make lighting, sculpture, Stop motion puppets, furniture, and equally silly action figures (coming soon), among other things.

He/him, neurodivergent, ally, rebel scum.

I design them, print them on vinyl, and cut them by hand. I'm not trying to present them as “artisinal, hand-cut, stickers”, or anything. I just don't currently own a vinyl cutting machine. If things go well I would definitely prefer it over the current scissors and scalpels technology I employ.

I try to use eco friendly options, and support local suppliers. That means recyleable packaging, and a durable, high-quality medium for the stickers.

I'm currently laser-printing the stickers but I'm looking into changing to eco-solvent inks. As a bonus, I think this would give the stickers better scratch resistance and possibly produce more vibrant colours.

I buy my adhesive sheets and laminate from MDP Supplies. They make laser printable vinyl sheets, among many other things, and the quality has always been excellent.

Packaging is kept minimal to reduce cost and weight, it's fully recyleable, and protective with a rigid card backing.

For now, I'm sending orders using the Irish postal service, An Post. I'd like to find better and cheaper options for international or tracked post, and also options that might be more sustainable. Many couriers have low carbon options as part of their offering but a lot of them simply use it as a way to get you to pay their carbon offset rather than making the system greener by default, so more research is required.

Postage rates are calulated at checkout, fewer than 20 stickers counts as a small letter, 20-50 a large letter, and above that parcel rates start to apply. I send by standard non-tracked post unless you choose that option. More details regarding postage can be found on the Imprint / T&Cs page

The Packs are small assortments of the regular stickers. They are a random assortment or a mix from whatever themed pack you choose. You can request specific stickers in the comment box at checkout but they must be stickers that are in stock on the regular site.

Seconds are stickers with errors like print issues, cutting errors, spelling mistakes, early test prints, etc. Some will be very obvious like print ghosting or dappled colour, while others will look close to the originals, but just not up to usual standard. I'll try to get a good mix so you get some decent ones in there. They are much cheaper for this reason. Perfect for a sticker bombing project.

Like the Donkey Counselling Sticker but you're from Delft? Think a Fijian Foghorn Museum would be funny? Your small town in Namibia iust not getting enough love? Get in touch, I might be able to localise some for you whether its for Ballyhaunis or Busan. I probably can't do all custom requests but some small batches for a small fee should be possible.

As for what's available already, I started with the places I knew best and worked from there. I've plenty more coming from around Ireland, so I will hopefully get to a town near you soon.

Where possible I try to use, and support, open-source projects and developers, and to find companies with good ethical practices. I'm based in Ireland and use mainly Irish or EU providers to ensure better data protection.

I'm slowly migrating to Linux, I still haven't fully escaped windows but I'm getting there. I mostly use Inkscape and GIMP to create graphics. Libre office is used for admin.

I don't use AI, and try to take steps to protect my work. Check out the AI Resist List for ideas about how you can too.

This site was coded in notepad++ and VSCodium (a telemetry free fork of VScode). It was tested using Firefox. My hosting is by site.eu based in the Netherlands. My E-commerce is currently by snipcart, a Canadian company with good GDPR & other EU compliance tools (working on it!). I use Dutch payment processor Mollie for secure transactions. For mail I use protonmail.

My privacy policy is simple, I don't use embedded analytics, and Your data will only be collected for the purpose of running the shop. Some logs will likely be collected by default by my hosting provider.

I use your email to handle orders, and to deal with customer service queries. By default you will never be opted in to any mailing lists. If you abandon your cart, maybe you just changed your mind. You probably had a good reason, so I promise I won't bother you.

The only cookie used is there to make the e-commerce and payments backend work. All the fine print for the above can be found on our Imprint / T&Cs page.

If you have an issue with an order or delivery, contact me at
orders@stickemuppunk.com

Send your general questions, suggestions and any and all other... estions you have to
headtheball@stickemuppunk.com

I don't use social media because I don't like it, nor the companies behind it. If you see an account on social media claiming to be me please ignore it, report it, or let me know, I can assure you its not me. Check back here if you ever need to be sure it's still not me. If you're checking back right now, (hey!) It's still not me.