The Hunt For The Unknown Sticker Part 3 - The Makers

Photo copyright Skylar Wilkerson

After my Q&A with Nick May, Matt Scotton sent me an email connecting me to Michelle Kobold. She was the instructor that taught the graphic design class that was commissioned by May to create the stickers.
Mrs. Kobold followed up with an email with the names of those students that made the stickers, Nicole Johnson, Jack Hagner, Hadassah Zderad, and Carlos Torres. They created the stickers during the winter 2025 term.

I then scheduled a Q&A session with the students, Johnson, Hagner, and Torres. Zderad was unavailable for the meeting. In case you were wondering, they were the one who designed the Uno-style ones and the LB pancake-style sticker!

What was the idea behind the sticker?

Torres: So I designed the “Find Your Path” sticker and the “LBCC Backpack,” so my kind of inspiration behind them was a 90s internet sort of vibe. I wanted it to look very digital in its design, but still kind of childlike and playful. That was kind of the idea I was going for.

So they gave us a few things to work off of with our prompt, and one of them was the DPP’s tagline, Find Your Path. I latched onto that idea. I drew a path, so the path through the mountains, and I was also inspired by the 60s/70s rock posters. Like the bright colors and the hand-drawn typography were my primary inspirations for that!

Johnson: I designed the ASL sticker, the shape of Oregon that's wood with rings, and then I also designed the tree air freshener one as well!

So I mean, there was kind of a specific vibe I was going for, like kind of that Pacific Northwest aesthetic, like growing up here and kind of capturing the essence of it! So I really wanted it to be a certain specific vibe, so I tried to capture that. While adding some texture and kind of make them hopefully come off that way!

Hagner: I designed the pride ones. They originally gave us OSU stickers to get an idea of what kind of vibe they wanted, and some of the OSU stickers were pride ones.

Being LGBTQ+, I was like, I'll do some pride ones! I wanted some sort of representation of the LGBTQ+ because there's a bunch of obviously LGBTQ+ students here at Linn-Benton. I designed the Rocky with the progress pride flag, and then a more subtle rainbow trout with the rainbow gradient and the slogan “Find Your Path, Be Who You Are.”

I also followed the theme of Linn-Benton and Oregon with the fish, because I like fish. And I am assuming a lot of other people also like fish, too!

How long did it take to draft and/or design?

Torres: So we had the whole term to design them, and it took a good chunk of the term! We were juggling a couple of projects at the time as well.

But I think this one, we definitely got the chance to have a little more fun and be more creative with it. With that, the process actually went a little bit faster because we weren't put so much into a box on design. So, we ended up being pretty close to finishing with these within probably like the final quarter of the term!
Johnson: I agree with what Carlos said though, like being able to have the creative freedom to kind of do whatever we wanted, but closer to that than what we normally are doing. It kind of made it faster in some ways. It still took several hours for each one, but definitely a little bit less work than it could have been, since we had so much freedom, which was really fun!

Hagner: I was the primary contact for messaging every time we sent something to Matt or Nick. They'd be like, ”Oh, these look great!” 

So there was like no iteration and it was basically very minimal iterations. It was very freeing and just, it was like a regular art project with no pressure. So it went by really fast. We had to keep it school appropriate and all that. It was more just making fun stickers, and we like to make fun things!

What was the biggest challenge you faced doing this project?

Torres: Yeah, I feel like this was a fairly smooth project all in all. The hardest part was juggling it along with our other assignments in the class. 

At the time, we were working with multiple clients at once, but I think especially with this project, at least I was able to strike a pretty good balance between it all.

Johnson: Pretty much the same for me as well.

Hagner: The biggest part with me was actually emailing. Since I'm very anxious, I had to re-write the email I was sending like 5,000 times. That was pretty much the hard part of it, the rest was smooth sailing.

What was the most fun part of designing the stickers?

Torres: Just expressing your artistic abilities in them. The class we took was a design studio. So, it's one of the last classes you take in the visual communications program. So 

Johnson: It was nice to have it culminate in everything that we've learned in the past few years and just getting to express our skills and do something a little more free!

Hagner: I agree.

Why was it so significant to you, as in the design aspect?

Torres: It was a good opportunity to just express what LB means as a whole, or what we think LB means and also what it means to us to some degree and just like how we wanted to express that. While also making something for ourselves in the process and for our future.

Johnson: I feel like it was fun to kind of express the aesthetic of growing up in Oregon. It was fun to find something that I felt like visually communicated in a way, like just that feeling. 

Kind of a culmination of my design skills from the last few years and growing up in Oregon and having fun with it! It's obviously fun to represent the school and make stickers that you know are more exciting than just the basic LB or the other basic ones available. This project was fun, because I really liked stickers. So I was excited that I knew that I would want to put this on something of mine. So, part of the motivation was like finding something I would put on my own water bottle or laptop or something that I could appreciate!

Hagner: It was kind of the same for me, as I like sharing my art and I like people to enjoy my art.

So that's kind of the reason why I create stuff. And so just having the idea of my art being out in the wild and being on someone's phone, water bottle, car, or a laptop just makes me a little happy.

If given the chance to design another set(s) of stickers, would you do it again?

Torres: I mean, this is very well within my style, so probably there'd be echoes of it definitely! So, if I were to do it again, I'd probably change it up a little bit!

Johnson:  I was going to say the same thing. I like the ones that I've done, but, there's probably more styles I could even go through and think of if I were to make more!

Hagner: Yeah. I mean, they said it best. It's just kind of expanding on what I've already done. I would probably do more pride ones. But I would do a kind of similar style, like a cartoon character again for fun.

What would you say to future designers if they were given the chance to design stickers again?
Torres: Have fun with it. 

Johnson: You took the words out of my mouth.
Hagner: I agree with that, and don’t be afraid to be yourself!

During the time of the Q&A’s, I sent an email to Leslie Hammond, the dean of Linn-Benton. The reason why I reached out was because I was curious about the possibility of these awesome stickers being released and future stickers being available to students in the future, to which in her email, she replied, “In general, we have dedicated budgets for “expendables” or “swag” for our recruitment efforts. I imagine that their limited number is most likely because of budget constraints and wanting to make sure they have an ample supply for their DPP events. If there is a high demand among students, I'm happy to convey that to the office to learn more about if they can be released to students as a whole.”

Fairly recently during the SpringFest event on May 14, May told me that the stickers were passed out during then, and went quickly! Hopefully you were one of the lucky ones to pick one up!

Epilogue:

During the process of my hunt, I came across many notable people in this little journey that loved the stickers these students made, like; Jesse Genco, Gabby Triana, Catherine Cavazo, Matt Scotton, Nick May, Aaron Groves, Kathy Lawrence, Ryland Bickley, Mr. Priewe, Mrs. Poe, the First Resort staff, SLC, and anyone else I forgot to mention that I met along the way! 

However, I was also asked the question of why hunt these stickers? Well, the reason why is because it started originally with the yellow Uno-style sticker. I was curious if it was available on campus somewhere for students or to buy since there are little “cool” stickers available on campus.

As the story started, and ended, my hunt led me all over campus and down some interesting places, but what I feel is most important about this story is the connections I made along the way. While this may be something minor, it shows the request for more student-made stickers, but also the people who sat all term and made those stickers that we all will admire on campus.