Everything in The HoppShopp is a subtle, yet tasteful middle finger to AI-generated art.

One silver lining to the flood of AI-generated content: it’s made me appreciate everything not generated by AI a hell of a lot more. Though the work I do is mainly digital, I find myself growing obsessed with the analog world — old cameras with click-y buttons, vinyl records, artwork you can actually touch. The more digitized the world becomes, it seems, the more I just want something real.

If you’re reading this, I think you and I can relate here.

What first drew me to making stickers was exactly that — I wanted a way to bring my digital art into the physical world.

To me, the saddest thing about using AI is that it takes the fun out of making things. Whether it is illustration, music, writing, or anything else, you are skipping the best part of being creative: the act of doing it. Struggling, messing up, figuring it out, and getting better. That is where the real joy lives. I firmly believe that making art should be fun first, not just about the final product. When you let AI do it for you, you are not only missing the chance to learn, but you are giving up the best part of the experience altogether.

That’s why above all, I make stickers because it’s fun. I find joy in making little doodles, printing them out, and watching movies with my fiancée while I cut them all out. I don’t claim to make the world’s best stickers (even if it is true), and if I ever get rich someday I doubt it’ll be because of this. If BigStickerGPT can make a better sticker than I can in 1/100000 of the time, so be it. That won’t stop me putting Drumstick Plato on my mini fridge.

The secret about these stickers is that, until they’re printed out, they really are just doodles. Ideas. PNGs. Every time you put an order in at the HoppShopp, you help turn an idea into something real.

Like magic!