Cover Photo By Danni Lim
Cover Photo By Danni Lim.

Unpeeling the artist from his ‘New Jeans’ Taft stickers


If you had a sticker to send out to the world, what would it be?


By Wallace Beltran | Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Different stickers found around the Taft area surfaced online for their Gen Z humor and pop culture witness. Discover the person behind the graffiti.

 

BAWAL UMIHI DITTO,” says a sticker randomly attached to an electric pole around Taft, featuring a graffiti-like Filipino illustration of Calvin with his head replaced by the K-pop group New Jean’s bunny mascot—what? It is what it is, and it sure is grabbing people’s attention online, with its creator's post on the stickers reaching more than 45 thousand likes.

 

These stickers spread around Twitter fast, with more people posting their encounters in the wild. In an interview with The Benildean, ID 122 AB Multimedia Arts student Harry “Limmie” Limbo shared everything behind his stickers, what inspired him, and where you can expect more of his designs. 

 

When they see me, ‘who is he?’

Coming from Lucena City, Limbo's always felt curious about the city life in Manila, wanting to experience the depth and culture it has to offer, especially in its street art. “I wanted to do that too, I wanted to leave that mark here,” he thought to himself.

 

It was only when he came to Taft that Limbo saw the number of stickers used in street art. Why stickers? “Ba’t nga ba stickers,” he laughs before sharing how it’s more accessible to him. He explains how sourcing spray paints and other materials is harder, adding how “it takes a lot of guts to (use spray paint for graffiti), kaya ko namang gawin ‘yun [...] Taft at night, sobrang populated pa rin, maybe I’ll take the risk someday.”

 

While its initial creation was on a whim, the design was mostly a combination of Limbo’s love for different things; for one, the K-pop group named New Jeans. “Yung lyrics nila, ‘yung imagery, and branding as a group,” he enthused, later on simplifying his process for the design however to just look appealing, “Basta I wanted to make (the stickers) straight forward and readable. It needs to be punchy.”

 

I’m not looking for just fun

Limbo recalls the moment he found a tweet about his stickers—how his friend sent him the link which, at first, only had around 30 likes as it then blew up the following day. He laughs at the thought of his stickers trending, “Syempre nakakakilig, people are laughing and people are appreciating the work [...] what matters to me most is that it gets recognized.”

 

When high demand came, Limbo opened a Google form to accept orders from people, “people expect me to churn out new designs every week, parang rinurush.” Alas, with such high demands, he expressed his take when it came to creating stickers and other merchandise of the like claiming, “If I have an idea, it’ll come to me, pero I don’t wanna force myself to think of something witty [...] kasi, parang, it diminishes the value of why I’m doing this in the first place.”

 

After conversations about the trend and where it all started, The Benildean asked Limbo for some advice to Benildeans who may be interested in creating merchandise of their own. He chuckles, “Just do it, ‘yun lang talaga,” he says, “literal na nasa [cafeteria] kami nung mga friends ko, I was deliberating by myself [...] at some point nag snowball into this [...] so if you have an idea, just do it.”

 

While Taft was the place where Limbo focused on with these graffiti stickers, he also stuck some around areas he’d find himself in with friends.

 

You can see more from Limbo by following his Twitter here and maybe getting some stickers when pre-order links are back up!