Back in the '80s, Lisa Frank inspired an entire generation of kids to cover everything they owned with colorful, neon stickers. Now, some of those kids have grown up to be designers, and there's a new sticker book just for them. Created by two Frog alums, Sticker UI Book makes designing a user interface as fun as slapping rainbow pandas and psychotropic dolphins all over your Trapper Keeper.
The Sticker UI Book is a slim volume--something like a composition book--that comes with eight pages of stickers designed to resemble common UI elements. They can be stuck on the book's 48 empty pages to brainstorm new user interfaces and apps.
The Sticker UI Book was created by Brandy Bora and Jennifer Williams of Killer Inc, two New York-based designers who met at Frog Design in 2009. The pair originally teamed up to try to make a game, but soon found themselves bonding over something else entirely.
"We were both girls who grew up in the '80s, so as kids, we just loved our Lisa Frank stickers and notebooks," Bora tells me. "The feeling you get from looking over a collection of stickers, and the story each one provides is something that seemed to have stuck with us. I think we both wanted to recreate that feeling of fun with a different aesthetic."
To create the Sticker UI Book, Bora and Williams worked for about a year on nights and weekends, looking at their old wireframe sketches for inspiration and blocking out templates. Then they created a custom set of UI elements, drawing every icon and element to work with page layouts for mobile, tablet, and the web in mind, and sharing them with other designers for feedback.
Although the inspiration for the Sticker UI Book is undeniably whimsical, Bora means for it to be a serious design tool. "We wanted to make sure that the brand has a look and feel that does not draw attention away from the ideas of the sketchers," Bora says. "We hope the finished kit represents a clean design that will help our supporters create wireframes that clearly communicate interactions."
With 22 days to go in a Kickstarter campaign, the Sticker UI Book is trying to meet a $12,500 goal to enter production. If things go well, the Sticker UI Book will ship to backers in November; you can pre-order one now starting at $25.
Now would someone come up with Colorforms for designers next? Please?