Infectious: Making America's Traffic Jams SO SO SO Much Prettier!

One of the magical things about living in the Bay Area is the art car phenomenon. The rest of the world obsesses about pearlized gold exteriors -- in the city by the Bay its about self expression.

Oh, it's not totally an SF thing -- when I bought my Scion I was given the option of sticker decals in the shape of fingerprints, for one. I demured because I felt that there was something sorta sad about a mid forties dude customizing his XB. Aside: I REALLY REALLY wanted that purple light feature, but I could imagine the earthquake caused by my Anglo Saxon ancestors turning in their graves, so I decided against it. And to be honest, the Scion options were fairly limited.

Enter Infectious, a company based in SOMA that offers a huge variety of car design stickers -- beautiful designs at that! Oh, and they're not just about cars -- there's iPhone, Laptop, and Wall stickers as well.









They have a team of in house artists, but also offer an open competition that lets artists submit their designs as well.

This is clearly a company with creativity at its nexus. Here's how they explain their founding.

It all began with a gorgeous ass...

It was a warm Spring 2000 and I was sharing an apartment in San Francisco's Mission District with Mike, my old college buddy. Mike owned a beat-up old white Honda Civic Hatchback that looked just like the million other boring ass white hatchbacks out there. One day he decided that he wanted to have a donkey painted on it. Not just any donkey, but the one from his favorite book, Platero y Yo. Mike eventually persuaded a muralist to turn his car into this moving pastoral scene. It cost him $1000.

On many occasions I rode the streets of San Francisco in the eye-catching Platero-Mobile. It was an incredible experience. Bored kids in the back of their parents' cars jumped up and down. Strangers at intersections stopped to ask questions. The car was literally a traffic-stopper. The seeds of Infectious were sown at that moment.

Mike was onto something, but here were just a few problems. It was expensive. It was permanent. It was a donkey.

So we took all the creativity of Mike's moving canvas and remove all the negatives. And thus was born the idea of adhesive Car Art. But then we thought, why stop there... Laptops, iPhones, walls... Can't just about any surface be a canvas?

Consider this a warning to blank surfaces everywhere.

Tim Roberts
Founder of Infectious

At less than $400 for a car package, and far far far less for the other offerings, it's only natural that I expect Infectious to be very catchy, indeed. And America's roads and briefcase interiors will be all the richer for their success.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.