Here’s an interesting dilemma for you: do you place stickers onto the back of your laptop? Are you a laptop sticker kind of person or afraid of anything glossy that might leave glue marks? I used to belong to the latter group, but after more than six years of typing on this M1 Air, I was ready to give in. The reason for this is simple. Sebastián sent me a couple of Emacs-related stickers, knowing I couldn’t resist. It’s all his fault. Look at what he did! A not so pristine golden coloured MacBook Air shining in the sun, desecrated by four stickers. (And yes, I am well aware of the irony of pasting a Free Software Foundation sticker on a MacBook that runs on a proprietary OS. I promise my next hardware choice will be more ethically sound.) Of course I can’t stop there: what to do with all that open space in-between the stickers? I could have placed them all at one side to make it even more painfully obvious that the beautiful symmetry is completely gone now. As for the question of where to stick them: I already think far too much and was too happy with the stickers to give this much thought. They’re on there. The Apple logo is still visible: a Brain Baking logo sticker covering that up might be the logical next step to take. Every time I receive stickers at conventions, I hesitate: do I stick these onto the laptop? Wait, what do they represent? Do I really want to proudly display the Octat GitHub mascot to promote GitHub as “the only way to do Git”? Nope. Do I really want to paste a Java mug or Gopher on there, identifying myself with these programming languages that aren’t bad but don’t get my engine running? How about a colourful JetBrains IntelliJ one that can serve as a free ad? Nope, nope, nope. It was easy to be in the (tech) sticker hater group. And then I finally found something that was fun to mess around with. So yes, I am now a happy Lisp and Emacs advocate at work. The stickers already provoked many Emacs versus Vim discussions that end once you show them that Emacs can be a window manager running your other apps, or that EVIL mode exists. Still, 99% of the die-hard coder colleagues—which are less than 10%, the others of course rely on VS Code—are Vim users. That’s great! But one wasn’t and told me he yesterday closed his Emacs window for the first time in weeks. We both had to move classes but I’ve made a mental note to meet up and exchange Lispy configs. Thank you Seb & Seb’s stickers. Many of my students like stickers on their laptops. Most just stick on there whatever they can get their hands on. I’ve seen a lot of Gophers but nowhere in our curriculum we explore Go and after approaching them, I learn that they don’t even know how to write a line of Go code. A Gopher is cool, that’s what matters! I do think that you should at least know what you’re implicitly preaching. Which is why I’m not limiting myself by sticking only tech-related stuff on there. The question then becomes: what else? Something retro game-related, obviously. But still: what? A classic Castlevania logo? I’d rather go for a custom-printed sticker with some obscure sprite work, from for instance Wario Land 3 or Gobliins 2. If someone is able to recognise all these, I’ll finally have found my missing soulmate. Maybe a pixelated version of bread or a fountain pen? Or am I giving away too much information that way? Also, since the laptop turns seven in January, I should keep copies as the stickers are not transferable. Another approach would be to cover the entire back, making use of every square millimetre. A few colleague design lecturers carry laptops like this. I don’t think I’m cool enough for that. Terence caught a nasty laptop sticker paralysis while trying to perfectly place his, so a bit of thoughtful preparation might be in order. I love Abigail’s Kirby sticker on her Thinkpad. She even scanned her laptop with a photocopier and converted the entire thing into a clickable polygon-based SVG. Much cooler than my lazy cellphone snapshot. I’m also jealous of her Cory Wong pizza slice sticker! I do wonder what she’ll do when her laptop breaks down or it’s time for a replacement. Nia’s laptop stickers (a November 2022 snapshot) also contains some cool ones, as does Manton Reece’s, such as bookstore stickers. Here’s a discussion on the Framework forum containing more inspiration. It is clear that I still have some work to do. The four stickers are only the beginning. Laptop Stickers: Yay Or Nay? Yay. But then: how many? Overlapping or not? Planned placement or not? Tech-related only or not? See, even the most banal decisions in life come with Deep Thoughts! To be continued with a photo when it’s done. Related topics: / stickers / By Wouter Groeneveld on 9 October 2026.  Reply via email.