Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: 10 Works of Post-it Art
by Stacy Conradt - September 8, 2010 - 4:30 PM

q10

Who says you need expensive materials to make art? Other than a somewhat flat surface, all you really need are a few hundred of that denizen of office supply cabinets everywhere: the Post-it Note. The colorful squares are practically screaming to be made into mosaics, aren’t they? More than a few people have certainly thought so – check out these 10 amazing works of art created out of nothing more than paper with a bit of adhesive on the back.

1. Elvis. Elvis was created at a creative agency called Capstrat in Raleigh, N.C. After about a year, Elvis was replaced by our very own mental_floss mascot: Einstein! You can see the Elvis-to-Einstein transformation here.

2. A whole living room. I’d consider this installation art.

3. This piece was done by Illegal Art, a New York public art collaborative. The blank Post-its were carefully placed and strangers stopped to write their To Do lists on the notes. Photo by Lightwerk.

4. Most of us remember how pixel-y video games used to be. Nintendo played on that concept when they promoted the Virtual Console, a way to download the old-school games right to your Wii. Pretty smart.

5. “Mother Creativity” was the winner of a 3M contest to get artists to create something using only their Post-it brand notes. Two teens from Florida won with this entry, which was recreated large-scale in NYC’s Grand Central Terminal using 100,000 sticky notes.

6. It took David Alvarez more than 10,000 notes to create Ray Charles as part of a college art project.

7. Watch a video of this 25-foot Calvin and Hobbes masterpiece going up at Dordt College. It was up for six days before college officials took it down. Boo.

8. Here’s another room – this one covered entirely in white Post-its, which I think gives it a rather eerie quality.

9. This self portrait by David Sieren is amazing.

10. Bergdorf Goodman got into the act with a set of Post-it clowns in their store windows. Creepy.

Photo by misocrazy.

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Comments (11)

  1. How cool! I like the one where strangers write their to-do lists!

    posted by Shash on 9-8-2010 at 5:05 pm

  2. I love office supplies and this post totally made my day!

    posted by ashley.paige on 9-8-2010 at 5:10 pm

  3. These are fun!

    Disney did a similar thing using post-it design animation to celebrate their focus on vounteering. It was pretty cool to watch the video of how it went together.

    http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/02/mickey-notes-disney-parks-celebrates-volunteering/

    posted by Susan on 9-8-2010 at 6:16 pm

  4. New York City doesn’t have a Grand Central Station. Perhaps you meant Grand Central Terminal.

    posted by Cliff on 9-8-2010 at 8:01 pm

  5. Wow. The Calvin and Hobbes art is so accurate. It’s like Watterson himself was supervising. It’s a shame that it got taken down.

    posted by Ben on 9-8-2010 at 10:06 pm

  6. Abe Lincoln, in post-it notes, as produced at Illinois Wesleyan University by Chris Kilham, a friend of my son.

    posted by Sandy on 9-9-2010 at 7:17 am

  7. Wow these are amazing and very creative.

    posted by Anon on 9-9-2010 at 8:31 am

  8. These are all so cool! I’m surprised you guys didn’t mention this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWM0FNPZSs. It’s one of the most popular on youtube!

    posted by Nicole on 9-9-2010 at 10:47 am

  9. Hey Stacy. Thanks for including our sticky-note Elvis as #1. The mural was created at Capstrat, a creative agency in Raleigh, NC, and the guy in the picture is our very own Exec Creative Director, Todd Coats. This sticky-papered stunt even landed Todd on Letterman where he created a mural of Biff throughout the show!! Elvis lived in our boardroom for over a year, only to be replaced with Einstein. Check out our vid of the transformation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK8X0UX9vyQ

    posted by Jonathan W on 9-9-2010 at 2:14 pm

  10. Jonathan, thanks! That’s awesome! I will include your link up above.

    posted by Stacy on 9-10-2010 at 2:53 pm

  11. This had to be expensive, since post-it notes are a pricey office supply, even the off-brand one.
    Great imagination!

    posted by Kelly on 9-11-2010 at 4:09 pm

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