CHEER UP
CHEER UP
UNITED STATES
@CHEERUPOFFICIAL
Some artists want you to look at them. CHEER UP wants you to look around. A somber face. A clown nose. Stickers, posters, and zines that turn an ordinary walk into a little art hunt.
Before CHEER UP was everywhere, it started with DIY culture.
CHEER UP is an American artist whose creative roots stretch back to the early ’90s, shaped by the raw energy of hardcore punk, independent music, concert posters, and the idea that you didn't need permission to make something and put it into the world.
That DIY mentality became a foundation for everything that followed. Rather than waiting for the right opportunity, platform, or audience, CHEER UP approached art the same way underground music scenes approached records, flyers, and shows: make it yourself, share it yourself, and see where it goes.
The project took on a new life in the mid-2010s when CHEER UP began producing stickers. Small enough to travel anywhere and simple enough to exist outside the traditional art world, stickers became the perfect medium for an idea built around repetition, discovery, and connection.
What began as a batch of stickers quickly became something much larger. Tens of thousands of CHEER UP stickers have since made their way into cities around the world.
Walls, signs, street poles, doors, electrical boxes, and countless other pieces of the urban landscape became part of the project. The work wasn't meant to stay in one place. It was designed to move, appear unexpectedly, and become part of whatever environment it landed in.
One image. Endless interpretations.
A somber character, often wearing a clown nose, sits at the heart of CHEER UP. Bold lettering and changing colors, distortions, and collaborations keep that familiar face in motion. You recognize the character, but each version gives you something different to notice.
Stickers may have become the most visible part of CHEER UP, but the project has never been limited to one medium.
CHEER UP has expanded into posters, prints, original artwork, merchandise, collaborations, and independently produced zines that document the street art and sticker communities surrounding the project.
Through publications like the Sticker Life series, CHEER UP has also turned the attention toward other artists, documenting their work through photography, interviews, and stories.
Street art is about more than leaving your own mark.
CHEER UP also makes a record of the people shaping sticker culture. The independently produced Sticker Life zines bring together artist interviews and photography, while photo journals document work encountered in Tokyo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, and Osaka. These publications turn a fleeting street encounter into something you can hold, revisit, and share.
Here’s the best part: CHEER UP doesn’t just put work up. They document everybody else’s. That’s DIY in its natural habitat.
A familiar face from the film.
CHEER UP also appears in Sticker Movie. In their interview, they describe a whole scene of people making stickers and putting them out in the streets, often invisible to anyone outside it. Spend a little time looking around and that world starts opening up.
There is something different about discovering artwork in a place where you weren't expecting to find it.
A sticker on the back of a street sign doesn't ask you to enter a gallery, buy a ticket, or understand the context first. It simply exists there until someone notices it.
More than a decade after the first CHEER UP stickers began appearing in the streets, the project continues to evolve while holding onto the same DIY spirit that shaped it from the beginning.
Through it all, CHEER UP remains rooted in a simple idea: make something, put it into the world, and let people discover it for themselves.
A sticker can leave an artist's hands and end up on a street corner thousands of miles away. A bag of coffee can carry an artist's work into someone's kitchen, studio, office, or morning routine. In both cases, an everyday object becomes a place for art to live.
Flip through Sticker Life Vol. 1 and you’ll find Chris RWK. Pick up the NYC issue of As Seen On The Streets and there’s RX SKULLS. Familiar faces from the Canvas Series, already connected through CHEER UP’s record of the scene. That’s why this collaboration feels right. Now CHEER UP’s on the bag.
CHEER UP. Canvas Series 010.
Buy Cheer Up’s coffee or subscribe to the Canvas Series.