Streets, tall buildings, traffic lights, and everything you see on the road may not look different from the human world we are living in. But once we see colorful monsters with heavy curves - some have ears, arms, and hair; some wear shirts, some wear socks; some have unique body patterns and some are even splittable! - we are reminded that we are on our way to a monster world, creatively designed by Sticky Monster Lab.

    Monster characters of Sticky Monster Lab may look cute and simple at first sight but with a deeper look, it brilliantly reveals human-like feelings and emotions in a more adorably weird way.

    Sticky Monster Lab is a multidisciplinary creative studio founded in 2007 in South Korea, consisting of 3 members - Fla, Boo, and Inae, with various creative backgrounds.

    They told the story of the studio foundation, "Fla, who is a Creative Director, was a 3D animator who worked at an advertisement company. Boo, who is another Creative Director, was a freelance illustrator before Sticky Monster Lab. Two directors met while they were working for an advertisement project and decided to leave the company to start something new and creative they wanted to do."

    The first short exhibition 'The Runners' was premiered at RESFEST Digital Film Festival (2007) before they met Inae during the 1st solo exhibition "The Monsters" (2008) to present painting, animation, graphic design, sculpture, and the short animation "The Monsters" in which the world of 'Monster' is established. "During the 1st solo exhibition, Boo and Fla were looking for a figure sculptor who could work for making sculpture exhibits together before they met Inae, who is now a project manager. Three members: Fla and Boo (Creative directors), Inae (Project manager) are working together until today."

    "Many people paid a visit and gained a whole new experience because, at that time, there were not many opportunities for a design studio to hold an exhibition with animation in South Korea. So, people were quite interested and wanted to know about us."

    The 1st exhibition enhanced an opportunity for the Sticky Monster Lab to become recognizable among people working in the advertising and marketing industry. After that, they invented monster characters to be featured in their animation and graphic design before expanding to a wide range of products from figures and essential supplies - such as key chains, airpod cases, mugs, water bottles, bags, lamps - to posters and art prints. Those monsters are also seen in collaborations with famous brands, such as Nike, Nissan, Fujifilm, South Korean's T-money cards, and many other clothing brands.

    Apart from countless collaborations with world-famous brands in South Korea, Sticky Monster Lab also brought their monster world abroad, such as in Tokyo International Anime Fair 2009 in Japan and Public Fair No.1 Hong Kong 2012 exhibition in Hong Kong. The characters have captured many audiences and become so popular that Sticky Monster Lab's products are being distributed in many countries, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Italy. In Thailand, Sticky Monster Lab products are available at both branches of happening shops and at website happeningandfriends.com The adorably unique monster characters are selected as "Brand of the Month" in June 2021 and are also held for one month in both happening stores.

    In the animation, we will see the life of monsters in the monster world as we are in the human world. Not only the way of life or feelings of monsters are portrayed in different situations, but the character and other elements, including movie posters, music, gadgets, and video games, that are featured in the work also reflect the influence of pop culture from the human world to the monster world.

    "The monster world is similar to our world, you could only find out a little difference between them. For instance, 'The Beatles' in the monster world is not the same as 'The Beatles' we know. Some figures of monsters in the monster world are also splittable into 3 pieces. It is a reflection of our world. We wanted to represent the diversity of our world that is visually familiar and yet unfamiliar. Additionally, many artists, both old and new, have inspired us. But the biggest influences are artists from our youth, especially MTV, all-time masterpiece movies, Japanese Anime in the 80 and 90's we watched when we were young. Luckily, we can find many references of our inspiration online nowadays. We then set our mind on those works of art and it seems that all works we are attracted to have tremendously affected our works in various ways."

    We may have seen animations and products of Sticky Monster Lab that have brought smiles to many audiences. But their goals and ambitions are not just about creating products, the team said that Sticky Monster Lab is the artist's name but also is the studio name. "We have been making a structure of the studio that could help artists concentrate on creative works. We want to develop the work to become more stable under the 'freely, pleasantly and sustainable' concept."

    During the talk, we noticed that Sticky Monster Lab has set their settings and atmosphere of the monster world pretty similar to a creative human world. Some monsters handed a glass of Americano to their armless colleague during an exchange of ideas. They invited each other to go out for a relaxing walk after lunch before waving goodbye as they were on their way back.

    If we do not solely pay attention to physical appearances of the monsters, all characters from Sticky Monster Lab are, in many aspects, like us as human beings. They also enjoy watching movies, listening to music, playing games, exercising, living their lives at work and socializing with friends, and sometimes facing some loneliness. It is not surprising why the works of Sticky Monster Labs are displayed in many parts of the world and always welcomed by people.

    Because we know that they did not come to invade the human world but rather came to make friends and bring joy to our lives.