My Master’s Thesis looks into the phenomenon of chat stickers in Instant Messaging environments as a form of visual communication. The thesis consists of a written part and an artistic production. The study combines together broad themes: food, communication and influencing people’s behaviours. I approach the subject through literature review, analysing existing stickers and through my own creative process designing the sticker brand, Veggie Friends. 
 
The character of this study was qualitative and aimed to answer questions like 1) How to design chat stickers? 2) Can chat stickers be used to influence food and lifestyle choices? And 3) How can awareness be raised without being preachy. 
 
In the written part the landscape of contemporary digital communication is opened up, focusing on emoticons, such as Emoji characters and Chat Stickers in more particular. Visual culture plays a vital role in the society carrying meanings and affecting people’s opinions, also food choices. As people spend more and more time in front of screens, it might be that the images we see in our daily digital environments might have an effect on our eating habits too. I was interested to know what kind of codes can we see in current sticker packs and how meaning making takes place in this context. Areas of behavioural studies and social communication were also studied. 
 
In the production part knowledge gained from the previous areas was deployed in a self initiated design challenge, aiming to tackle the wicked problem of unhealthy lifelstyles and daily diets. The artistic work includes the design and production of an inspirational chat sticker pack called Veggie Friends. The 40-piece sticker set is designed for the Over-the-Top Messaging application, LINE. The documentation gathers information about how to design chat stickers in practice. Therefore this thesis
can also serve as a small guidebook for future sticker designers.