Izastikup, published by Drago Books and distributed in the UK by Art Books, is the most comprehensive collection of sticker art in book form so far. Some scoff at stickers saying that that they are the lowest form of street art. I would say that any art lover looking through this book would find it difficult not to fall for the art-form. So much variety and intensity. Is it any surprise that stickers and sticker collecting has become a part of our culture? Well I guess not. We are brought up on collecting stickers, especially us boys with our sticker books etc. Now we’ve grown up but some part of our subconscious draws us into the sticker world, especially if we’re already interested in street art to begin with.

It all started with a couple of artists’ private sticker collections; Microbo & Bo130. Then it grew to another dimension with a public call for stickers for this book. People from all over the world wanted to collaborate by posted their own stickers as well as some from their private collections. Why wouldn’t they, it’s a great idea, and a great way for the artists to reach a wider audience around the world. Anyways, more than 1000 stickers made the finished book in the end.

Due to its nature it’s almost impossible to describe in detail and difficult to find favourite pieces. The stickers on show have been stuck in place and then photographed to give and authentic reproduction of their placement on the streets. It’s a great feel. Loosely themed by colours, subjects and sometimes just because the authors liked the look of them a certain way. It’s really great flicking through the random looking pages and suddenly, bam! You hit a page with an obvious colour or subject theme and you’re stuck. You then have to go back a few pages to see if you’ve missed some kind of less obvious theme earlier on in the book. Makes for interesting re-reading (or should that be re-looking?). It’s also a very easy book to either glance through or study. The nature of sticker art and the way this book has been put together makes it a relatively natural read. It never really feels forced. Stickers often find themselves sharing small spaces with other like-minded artists’ artwork so it never feels cluttered or false.

Here’s are just a few of the artists that I particularly like that are included in Izastikup – L’Atlas, The London Police, Pete Fowler, El Tono, Damion Silva, Gorb, Mysterious Al, Mr Jago, Miss Van, Yok, Viagrafik, Obey, Pez, Dave The Chimp, C100 and approximately 785 more! The shear amount of artists is only equalled by the vast diversity of the colours, shapes, themes and styles of their crazy stickers. These stickers have been created by so many methods by so many hands with so many fresh and unique ideas. Stencils, pro-printed, hand painted, drawn etc. Lettering, characters, textures, logos, graphic design, etc. Some are quite common while others are, apparently, quite rare; even unique. This is what sells the book really, there’s just so much to see. You can study the book one evening and then flick through it again and again noticing new pieces of mini-artwork.

The stickers have also been carefully indexed so that you can find an artist and all the work that they have contributed to this book. However, none of the pages have any tell tale signs of indexing present, just the odd page number here and there to allow the index to do its work. Best of all perhaps is that as the books nears completion more spaces are left between the stickers will the last six pages are left completely blank. No prizes for guessing why either! They’ve been deliberately left to encourage us to complete the book ourselves; each one becomes completely unique. I think it’s a simple, but great, idea. I certainly have loads that are just kicking around and I hadn’t really thought of what to do with them so they may end up with this fantastic collection.

Although it’s not mentioned or illustrated in the book it’s worth mentioning that Microbo posted some wonderful photos of the envelopes that he received for the project. Take a look at Microbo’s Fotolog to see the enveloping goodness! The hand decorated envelopes are incredible and could well be made into their own book I think…Izastikup Envelopes…I’d buy it!

Izastikup weighs in at around 1000 sticker photos by over 800 artists within its 208 pages bound in an over-sized hardback cover.