Sticker art (also known as sticker bombing, slap tagging and sticker slapping) is thought to have originated in New York during the 1970s.

The early designs were usually just the artist’s tag. They were hand-drawn with a marker on paper stickers or wheat paste posters.

Gradually, as more artists adopted the medium, the designs on the stickers became more unique and colourful and the quality improved.

Today, if you wander down any alleyway (in any city in the world) you’re bound to find clusters of quirky, eye-catching images and characters printed on vinyl stickers or US Postal Service labels (label 228).

This is just a small collection I discovered in the narrow backstreets of Tokyo: