Laptops with Stickers (opens in new tab)

It's actually kind of concerning how these just look normal at first glance

I would get these if they were all OSS alternative logos with the paid names.

I feel like the GitHub one needs an inverse GitLab one. Otherwise it might look like you just have a GitLab logo and GitHub text logo separately.

This is incredible

This is awesome

So, you just like pissing people off?

It has nothing to do with that.

A good portion of these stickers are to do with things that are political or quasi political. What tends to happen is that a lot if times people have been burned in someway for supporting an idea or a cause. This is often because people have been fooled by charlatan, or it was later revealed that things were more complicated or different than they were led to believe.

Cringe and why people hate it is best explained by watching the very first episode of the UK office.

Most people want to go to work, turn up and do their time and go home. People that are often top enthusiastic are difficult to deal with day to day. People that adorn their personal possessions with slogans are seen as a warning sign.

But why so many stickers? Why so many tattoos? Why not pick one you very much like and agree with? Less noise. More signal. Less is more.

I don't like many of the ones mentioned on this website but here are some minimalist examples [1] [2] [3] [4] and an exception I do like a bit because of the custom shape [5]. [1] is more like a skin.

[1] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/20250221_00333...

[2] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/laptop_cover.j...

[3] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_1259.jpg

[4] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_5753.JPG

[5] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/54917193947_1f...

Thank you. I have tried to raise my daughters that way despite, potentially, (occasionally) embarrassing myself or the family.

God, I can't stand living in an artless world.

I feel like this direction of thinking is also a bit reductionist: there are plenty of reasons not to want to put stickers on a laptop. For me, personally, I don't like stickers because a year or two later, they don't represent how I think anymore. It's not an expression I would make today, it's a ghost of my old expressions.

And I feel like this greyification is only true in theory from the perspective of the manufacturers. I still run into plenty of people that are not afraid to decorate their space, laptop, or whatever else.

Greyification actually makes sense precisely because everyone has a different way of expression. That's why canvases are still white; you just have to find a different primer.

"Go ahead on Mr. Businessman You can't dress like me"

Jimmy Hendrix, If 6 was 9.

Has another relevant spoken word bit about waving his freak flag :)

its cringe because its not an original expression, its overdone and heavily political and obnouxious.

I don't judge people who put stickers on their laptop, but for me I don't simply because it brings me no pleasure or joy. I have never really understood decorative things in general. It is probably part of my neurodivergence, but I just don't get value from decorative things.

TBH I think putting stickers on your laptop is a practical imperative, as it makes it much less likely that you'll accidentally grab someone else's.

Not everybody copying a fanciful trend is, themselves, a fanciful independent free thinker.

That's how git commits work.

Current laptop stickers: current state.

Photo of the previous laptop: reference to previous commit.

I love this... I haven't had the courage to "spend" my sticker collection on my current laptop, as they obviously don't last forever. A solution could be to photograph the old cover, and print it as a full-size sticker as a starting point for the next laptop!

That's how my laptop home directory used to look. A subdirectory with a copy of the prior incarnation's home directory ad infinitum...

I am totally going to do this now. I always hate when I have to leave my old laptop stickers behind and this is such a neat way to keep them around.

Keep it going! I did that to my Facebook pfp (they also have stickers) - after a few years it became this abstract, glitchy work of art. I don’t use fb anymore but still remember that fondly

I didn't go that far, but I did take the back cover from my old (stickered) laptop and hang it on the wall.

Like my primary storage, with the old storage in a sub folder.

There's still a WP51 folder in there somewhere...

stickerception

It has become less fun since it has become common. My most recent laptop doesn't have stickers but I might apply some from my sizable collection before it becomes secondary laptop in 1-2 years.

You can still "hipster it" and only use actually cool stickers. Community open source projects, hackerspaces, good conferences, EFF and similar organizations, weird funny stuff.

Good:

https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/1762135251053-...

https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_9222-1.jpe...

"Employee of the month":

https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_20200717_2...

Cue the scene from Office Space where Jennifer Anniston's waitress character is required to have a minimum of 7 pieces of flair on her uniform, per corporate franchise policy. And that movie is from the 90s!

My work laptop has a company sticker on it. If I'm at a customer's office I'd like everyone to know I don't work for them. TSA also has this really neat trick where my laptop has gotten "lost" several times going through security. I have to describe the laptop in order to get it back. If I don't have an identifying sticker it's basically impossbile to uniquely identify it

Our CTO: If you add stickers to your laptop you need to keep it for four years, rather than two.

We sell back our laptop to the company we get them from, they refurb them and give us a nice discount on the new model. Most vinyl stickers leave a mark on MacBooks that can't come off, hurting the resell value a lot. Some have protecting covers on their laptop and the stickers go on that instead.

Big "needs more flair" vibes.

You are hanging out with the wrong crowd, if you can't get stickers the CTO would disapprove of. Visit a local squat, there are probably some which directly address the CTO job title. X-lube comes with collectible stickers too.

I usually just add a sticker to two so I can help make it easier to identify.

“We need to talk about your flair.”

Yeah, that's the one problem I'd have with stickers.

I'm personally not interested, but I also would never make fun of people expressing themselves.

On the other hand... mandatory fun, mandatory self-expression, any anything that takes something very personal and turns it into official or unofficial company policy makes me sick. I'm glad it's not too common here in Germany.

It's like HR forcing you to listen to punk songs because the company wants to promote a rebellious spirit as long as it's compatible with "disruption". It's also a bit like being asked "why are you so quiet" by someone who said everything worthwhile 5 minutes after getting out of bed but never stopped yapping.

To me stickers on laptops are as tasteless and kitschy as tattoos. I would never get a tattoo for the same reason I would never put a sticker on my laptop.

Besides nobody gives a shit about your stupid political opinions or the software stack you use.

that's fine, I like putting things on my laptop that I'm enthusiastic about like earth day or zig or whatever. People can like it or not. I suppose of my CEO told me to rip them off I would, otherwise it's harmless. I won't put political stickers on though. I keep religion and politics strictly away from my work life, and walk away if that's the direction a conversation turns. I'm sure there are people at the office who think I'm a die hard conservative, and other that are 100% sure I'm a far left commie, because I simply peace out on political discussions.

I just want a funny sticker to cover the logo of my laptop's producer.

Back in the day, a coworker would replace the "Intel Inside" on his computer with a sticker using a similar style that read "Evil Inside".

> It also looks a bit childish IMO.

God forbid people have a bit of fun in their lives.

One time when I left a job and had some really rare stickers I bought an identical ThinkPad and swapped the entire upper half of the machines with each other.

I regularly see pallets of laptops turned in (either due to refreshes or end-of-employment stuff) for a major manufacturing / engineering (car) company. They are just as stickered, but with automotive nerdery. It's pretty neat.

And seeing just /how/ many laptops are that way it made me feel a lot less weird about putting stickers on "my" work laptop.

That work-related aspect is what I was thinking about too. I’m not sure what it looks like in various workplaces, but I’m always a bit curious around the policies they might have around putting lots of them on employer-owned laptops. I think in tough times when maybe it’s not easy to replace hardware, it can be annoying for an IT person to receive some where they have to peel them off and use Goo Gone on them.

That's why I always have a clear case on my Macbook I cover with stickers. That way, I can take them with me when I leave, or take them off if I have a big meeting/presentation!

Ever since Framework laptops arrived on the scene, I've been waiting for someone to create thicker bezels that piggyback onto the webcams' USB 2.0 interface via a USB 2.0 hub, to integrate a color eInk display facing outwards. Just for the infinite stickers.

Bonus points for integrating an outward-facing webcam dedicated to a continous background facial recognition daemon to change the stickers on the fly depending upon who is approaching while the laptop is running.

You can heat most of them and take off easily. If the IT transfers laptops to other people, they surely have a system for cleaning already.

I always put stickers on work laptops specifically, in order to make mine recognizable among other identically looking laptops in the office.

But my stickers were always small, and usually lonely. A purple Emacs logo, a red Debian twirl, an orange lambda, stuff like that. Still was often enough to strike a conversation.

The team who handles hardware generally loves seeing the stickers people put on them.

This is why I've always wanted some sort of removable skin I can put my stickers on and be able to take them with me when I need to depart with my device

this one's mine https://i.imgur.com/22gSTuB.jpeg plenty of real estate left

I think I still have a ThinkPad around somewhere with that SSD sticker on it. Upgrading from a spinning drive to the X25-M is still to this day the most effective upgrade I've ever had in a system, more effective than any 2-3 generations of laptop upgrades combined.

I definitely got one or more of those stickers with some Intel SATA SSDs... sadly those I think have been the ones I had the worst luck with. I think they were one of those series that had some really bad write amplification problem or something like that, due to I think some issue with their power-saving implementation.

And a Gunship sticker. After looking at some of these I wish there was an optional field people could add so others with overlapping interests could follow a blog/socialmedia/etc.

I was just telling my buddy the same thing. It was our first SSD in HS. Mine eventually died with double the guaranteed TBW.

When everybody is issued with a dull grey laptop, putting a few stickers on it is a nice way to know which one is yours when there's ten laptops on a meeting table and it can help users feels more responsible of their laptop.

The nastiest/dirtiest laptops I saw were always sticker less.

I work at a large (>50k employees) company that is in every way the opposite of a start-up. Plenty of people cover their work laptops in stickers. The hardware group that handles replacing old machines has a wall of fame for all the lids with cool stickers.

I used to work for medium/big tech companies (8,000 - 70,000 employees.)

I always had a sticker on my laptop - everybody had the same laptop (or maybe one of two models.) It was a reliable way to quickly identify mine in a big group at a meeting or conference.

Not necessarily startup culture, my current assignment (energy company) has a number of teams that all want to do some kind of personal identity and self-promo, so they have stickers made on occasion.

Unfortunately a lot of them are AI generated, which is weird given we have a number of designers in the teams too.

Not necessarily startup. You can see some laptops with defcon stickers, it used to be very common for infosec auditors to have work laptops full of stickers not that long ago. Although, it is bad practice for read team audits, and some large companies don't like this kind of shenanigans for internal audits, so that may explain why it is less frequent nowadays

My laptop at Amazon was also covered in stickers, although I shied away from the more politically charged ones.

My company is definitely not a startup, but my laptop has stickers from a corporate event from last year...cute little robots. No one complains.

You see this at quite large companies. FAANGs and such.

Not really, I work at a big and older company and they will even have stickers around the office(we only need to go to the office 4 or 5 times per year, but can go whenever we please) to put in the laptops.

Do you publish the SSH key? Feels odd to order if I can't authenticate the connection.

Ordering is really tempting just because its so fun lol. Great idea and execution.

I was so curious to see how the payment would work...I'm curious is there any way to make payment work without a browser? Is it impossible for any reason or just complex?

Is there any way to see a full list of what's in each pack?

What happens when my email address contains the letter q?

big fan of the windows pack

OK, that is awesome.

just ordered because it's via ssh. great work!

thats very cool

Uses colours I can't read (even with `env TERM=dumb …`)

This is fucking awesome. I just ordered a pack, keep it up!

This is the main reason I've never gotten a tattoo - how I feel about whatever it is will almost certainly change.

I would like to know which stickers they were. Maybe I would recreate a few for irony. There are plenty of candidates for irony, from Enron to crypto. There are also those companies that it is hard to be excited about - I mean a Microsoft sticker would mark you out as a rebel.

Oddly, the only stickers I have on my computers are the Intel ones that come ready applied. Younger me would have gone in for stickers but younger me had pen and paper with no laptop. That said, back then it was school bags that got decorated, albeit with fabric patches and badges rather than stickers. Here was how you showed allegiance to music bands and football teams. I didn't do that though since I was not one of the cool kids.

One sticker set I would like consists of morally dubious companies such as defence corporations and failed companies from things such as crypto, mixed up with USAID psyops such as 'Free Tibet'. However I can't be bothered to put in the work. That is why stickers that are ready made succeed, it is minimal effort.

Younger me was surprised at how much stickers cost. When I was working in a bicycle shop we had Oakley sunglasses for sale, and the product was cool. In period people would buy Oakley stickers from us to put them in the back of their car. I expected these to be freebie promotional items but no, they cost a fortune and could not be just given away.

What stickers did you used to have? I'm always fascinated with how people change their mind.

Stickers are like statues of people, or streets named after people. They don't age well. Nothing and nobody is absolutely right, all the time or in hindsight.

I have a similar project to this one, and for some time I felt exactly the same. It's not so active anymore anyways, but yea the big tech logos have at least a bitter taste to them.

Is this one actually a sticker at all, or some sort of etching?

Ripoff is a strong accusation. You can't own ideas. I do think devlids has better execution, but it has more time (revisions) behind it. Personally, I think "devlids" limits the concept too much. I want to see lids from writers, artists, musicians, etc. Categorized so I can see how different kinds of creatives flair their laptops.

This one [1] is quite tasteful. I looked at it for a good minute.

[1] https://devlids.com/lids/the-binh

thanks for the shoutout ingomaro :3 I don't mind, I think folks should send it to both sites!

This tech looks like it would be annoying to other people in a cafe/workplace/etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drVhn0hLiI&t=40s

What I think would be ideal with current tech is non-backlit e-ink color. Maybe displaying a static image that usually doesn't change while at a location.

You could use e-ink display changes when switching between modes, for example:

* corporate in-office staid, or internal team flair;

* trade conference switch to promoting company brands, rather than internal flairs;

* corporate in-office using it to indicate when you're in focus mode or on a call and less interruptible (actually, you could maybe use the LEDs for on-call mode, a rare instance when you might want the more attention than e-ink);

* traveling with work laptop, but at a cafe or lounge, and want to signal social sensibilities for meeting people personally.

I had good success using isopropyl alcohol as a solvent and a drill with a plastic brush attachment, using less than 300 rpm.

Some choice stickers (McMurdo Station and South Pole Station stickers) have inhabited 3 of my laptops already.

I never put on stickers (except the Stain Javelin) on my laptop. It may be just me, but if feels messy to me.

There's a big difference between the materials that's used for the sticker itself (paper, plastic) and the glue they used. By now I have a good feeling about the "removability" of a sticker once i have it in my hand.

I sandwich them between my phone and a clear case now. Don't even have to take the stickum protector part off, so when you get a new phone, you can take your favorite stickers easily. Disadvantage: you get like 2 stickers total.

I buy a hard case, then put the stickers on that. Then I can pop it off if I need to be in a more "professional" environment or if I want to upgrade/sell it.

For me it was having to replace my MacBook's screen and loosing all the stickers in the process that made me realize I would loose any sticker used on a Laptop eventually.

did you manage to clean it up? Sometimes stickers leave permanent discoloration of the case, especially on aluminium Macbooks

>Some pen test teams use laptop stickers as an excellent resource for proper social engineering.

How?

Well, for a start, you don't know that these are MAIN WORK DEVICEs. Some of them may be personal devices seen at cons and so on.

That said, I'm not _that_ worried about people noticing that the scary gay has a rainbow sticker on his laptop. If someone at work has an issue with me being gay, well, they'll probably have that issue with me regardless of what is on my laptop, and that is very much their problem. You can't spend your whole life pandering to bigots.

Thanks for the reminder to put a pride flag on my new work computer. Can't for the life of me figure out why it'd be divisive though.

Also, why do you assume these aren't people's personal computers? Many people surely own computers personally, and of course people can express themselves on personal property.

I’m struggling to understand how you’ve put pride flags and death threats in the same category of “extremely divisive”.

I see others have asked the same question, but you don’t seem to have the courage to respond.

What’s divisive about a pride flag?

What's wrong with a pride flag? People commonly display their hetero marriages etc. at workplaces too. If either of those cause division in a workplace, that's a matter for HR or legal to resolve (if it is indeed a disruption).

Anyway it's unclear which of these are brought into offices.

I for the life of me can’t figure out why anyone would post such an extremely divisive comment.

Thanks for the link. I like how devlids links to the user's socials.

I would actually consider sticking the opposite "Nuclear power? Yes, please!" (Same for solar, wind, geothermal of course). Is there a sticker for pro-nuclear power movement?

P.S. There's a nice recent video to have a glimpse into nuclear power plant safety in action: https://youtu.be/v0afQ6w3Bjw

There's also one with Fernfusion (as a reference to the sun, made clear with a depiction) but I don't remember if it continues as "yes please" or "no thanks". I guess the former for solar power fans and the latter for vampires and night owls / hackers. Something for everyone ^^

I don't get it

I love this idea actually. Might have to do the same thing

Most of the stickers I've got have just been given to me. At house parties or conventions or with clothes I bought. I've then commissioned an artist to draw my own stickers which I got printed and hand out.

Stickers get handed around like business cards so the stickers on your laptop/fridge are almost like a record of the people you met.

I haven't really bought stickers off the internet, but I'm guessing t-shirt or art stores might have some, or your favorite brand of thing might have some.

If you keep your eye out for stickers, you'll start to notice them at many types of smaller establishments like cafes, book stores, boutiques, breweries, music venues, galleries, etc... they're often by the register, and sometimes free!

As a long time sticker collector, I love how the stickers found at random places have some memories attached to them. Finding them, especially when traveling, sometimes feels like finding treasure!

If you need to buy laptop stickers you're doing it wrong.

(I'm not talking about ordering a batch of your own design here to share it with friends and at events)

Etsy

just search for like "hacker stickers" or "cybersecurity stickers" or whatever you are looking for

Etsy has some, but you can also print your own for not much.

Try redbubble, I have a lot leftover stickers, because I got too excited ordering

My friend sells cute stickers she designs herself on Etsy.

I buy mine at redbubble.com

Only one simple non-computer related sticker to: - hide the logo of the laptop company - recognize my work laptop at airports security checks

Simply because i do not what to exchange my work laptop, with another traveler by mistake.

Avery 03383

This is the way.

Ha! That's great. I have a little box of small Japanese train headmarks I offer. They're like little raised button stickers.

It's a great way to filter for the fun and curious people.

Gods, GrapheneOS’s predictive keyboard and spelling checker is so much worse than iOS’, it’s not even funny

That's cute. You should share them.

Another way of looking at it would be adding some personality to the corporate drone existence.

That's gunna depend on the person, of course. Some people slap em on without any worry, some people make sure they're just not massively overlapping, and some people space them out nicely. Here's one that walks the line between order and chaos! https://devlids.com/media/pages/lids/shiro/bee7bec396-175127...

Haven't heard about cDc in about 20 years. Are they still active as a collective in any way?

You can tell who's really old when they have a CDC sticker…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CDC-Logo.svg

(Now I want one.)

> Side note: What is that massive yellow CYBER sticker that seems to be on 80% of them? Feel like I’ve missed some kind of political movement.

I'm a little bit unsure about the origins of the sticker. But in the european hacker community the "CYBER" sticker is used for a bunch of things. Package tape, stickers and security lines.

There is one webshop selling them: https://cyber.equipment/

> I once had a loaner thinkpad for two days whilst my MacBook was bricked by Jamf - best believe they got that thing back covered.

I just have to believe that you know better than I do what was appropriate at your workplace.

I think the CYBER thing is a joke from the German part of the internet. Our government (and companies alike), liked to cyber-everything. Cyber as a word alone or prefix became a joke and that might be the origin.

Have a look at this cybervideo for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6KkRsS26M

Definitely a lot of cybersecurity stickers, but that aside, I see many, many different opinions, positions, and preferences represented in those stickers.

There's a laptop with multiple Amazon stickers, a laptop with Google Cloud stickers, and another laptop with a "There is no cloud, only other people's computers" sticker, and various self-hosters. There are people with local stickers from many different countries. There are people who care about repairability, people who care about reproducibility, people who have nostalgia for specific technologies, people who would love less of specific technologies, Windows fans, Apple fans, Linux fans, Intel fans, IPv6 fans, heavy metal fans, Pokemon fans, Simpsons fans, television fans, Vim users, tabletop gamers, cycling fans, shoe fans, coffee fans, tea fans, anti-AI people, pro-AI people, anti-blockchain people, pro-blockchain people, people who like to layer stickers, people who like to carefully arrange stickers.

Among the politics alone, there are many many opinions expressed, and I'd bet the owners of those laptops could have vigorous political arguments about the right way to do things.

> They all look the same. They all reflect similar taste. Quite a bit of politics, but is there a single right wing sticker? I couldn't find one.

If one of the laptops had a libertarian flag added, suddenly it would become "creative"? All these photos⁰¹²³⁴ are aesthetically distinct. Sure, you can see trends in the website but that's always a thing, specially considering nobody there is designing stickers.

I also find it curious that you conflate social signaling with lack of (true) creativity. If all you ate was bacon, would you sneer at the foodies for making homemade pesto and not unleashing their free will by adding strawberry jam to it?

[0] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/image-5.jpg

[1] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/cyberpunkd-chr...

[2] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_4174.jpg

[3] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/PXL_20251111_2...

[4] https://stickertop.art/content/images/2025/11/IMG_4148-1.jpe...

If anything all the transgender/pride and left-wing political cases just make me notice the more "original" ones more. It's like Where's Waldo. I still find stickers tacky though.

You might find that a lack of right wing stickers has to do do with the fact that most educated people today, such as hackers, who also historically deal with otherness and thus form protective communities, have zero interest in supporting fascist, hateful ideals nor their institutions.

It is positively ridiculous to ridicule a group of people for being "samey" while also lamenting that they do not support policies which historically aim to keep things the same and assimilate/homogenize those who do not fit into perceived societal norms.

Okay, that one's quite good. I'm quite tempted, though I assume shipping stickers to Europe is a pain/expensive.

This one is hilarious

but damn $14

Some of those books seem interesting, how were the memory, attention, behaviour ones?

I never understood people siding with Kevin. He always struck me as a fraud/pseudo-hacker and never did anything technical or substantial.

Looks like 武 ("bu", warrior).

https://www.japandict.com/kanji/武

The kanji on your laptop is not the same as 我. Idk if intentional or not

When I got an internship at Amazon, I (ironically) plastered my cubicle with all the leadership principles ("LP's"), in over-happy fonts. But the leadership did not realize I was being tongue-in-cheek, and I suspect my cubicle decorations had a significant positive impact on my success there, lol. In the end I even started to believe the LP's, so maybe they knew something I didn't.

The company I work at has a strict no stickers policy, that's why each and every one of my laptops is covered in them.

You can put them on your car, bike or rucksack

get a mirror sricker

I would never put stickers on my laptop, or my car, and I certainly wouldn't get a tattoo. But that's just who I am. I definitely don't understand getting upset at others doing these things. If it makes them happy, who cares?

> I think the most interesting aspect of this is how divisive something as innocuous as putting stickers on a thing is. What causes people to have a strong opinion on this one way or another?

Seriously. When I saw this initially posted I was like "Huh, this is cool. I bet HN will share some really neat ones, too!" and then we got... this. People more worried about the type of stickers and whether it's wholly unprofessional to dare to put a harmless sticker on a professional work device than anything else.

It's tiring, sometimes, how ready to be angry about something people seem to be.

Nah, this is just HackerNews. We're Redditors who think we're better than Redditors.

Most people don't care.

Never seen such well visible scars! Mine are only faint contours... https://i.imgur.com/Y4Q1uzC.jpeg

I was too thorough with the isopropyl alcohol.

It's a Faaaaake!