“Bumper Stickers” was a term I first heard used by Scott Tadman. These are his original words on the topic from the 1990s, as well as my growing collection.
[They are known as banner ads, but I still prefer Bumper Stickers.]
It came to me one night, through the pounding headache and massive amounts of “C&C“-eye. A billboard for non-ads. An advertisement for something other than a product or service. A personal soap-box of sorts. Just like a bumper sticker. Or, more importantly, something else to waste massive amounts of time on.
What is it? Simply, a 468×60 GIF image, the same kind used by “real” advertisers on their sites. Like Yahoo, Lycos and Infoseek. Why someone chose a number like 468 is still unknown, but that’s how most Internet standards are made.
— Scott Tadman
These were spawned, as you can no doubt tell, from massive amounts of Carmageddon playing. They were done by myself and Marty Bregman around 1997.
At another place of contract in 1999ish, Young & Rubicam Canada, we have these little birthday doos for our co-workers. One of them, a very good designer who’s birthday was around the beginning of December, made this as a thank you.
[Sadly, I can’t find this bumper sticker anywhere. 🙁 –Adam, 2016]
I’ve recently (2016) been tasked with creating another one for this very site, so I’m sure some more shitty fantastic examples will show up soon!