TikTok Stickers Design Guideline

So you want to create TikTok Stickers? We want to ensure you follow all of the proper design guidelines so your stickers will be approved. Read on for the correct format, margins, sticker types, and more to keep in mind when creating your own TikTok Stickers!

Format

Margins

To ensure each sticker is visually balanced, please keep 8 pixels between the trimmed sticker and the content around it.

Sticker types

The stickers you upload are primarily used in daily conversation and communication on direct messages. Please focus on stickers with clear emotional expressions. Avoid stickers that depict objects and scenery as these do not express moods and emotions effectively.

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Consistency

While a sticker set is expected to offer a variety of different expressions, it’s important to showcase a consistent visual theme throughout the stickers. Sets that contain multiple design themes will be rejected.

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Dark mode compatibility

TikTok has two display modes – Light mode & Dark mode. Make sure the stickers are visible in these two modes before uploading.

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Animation guideline

If you are working on animated stickers, make sure your animations run smoothly. The sticker resolution should be clear and sized according to requirements.

Community Guidelines

Stickers must comply with TikTok’s Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, the below Sticker guidelines, and all future policies governing the use of our service. TikTok reserves the right to reject or remove any stickers and or sticker sets that do not comply with the above terms, policies, or guidelines.

Please avoid perpetuating gender stereotypes, racial stereotypes, or any other stereotypes based on innate attributes.

Be aware of objects, accessories or projections that represent or reinforce racially charged stereotypes, particularly for communities of color (including Black, Latinx, Asian & Pacific Islander, Indigenous groups). Examples of potentially offensive accessories and objects: A gold chain and afro pick comb, a poncho, a pair of chopsticks and/or a sombrero, etc.

Be mindful of sensitivities surrounding the use of slang terms and/or colloquialisms. Such hashtags, terms and sayings have cultural and racial sensitivities, according to who and/or which brand is using said terms or languages.

Violent Extremism

We do not allow stickers that promote dangerous individuals or organizations who may attempt to use our platform to incite terrorism, crime, or other types of behavior that could cause harm. As per our Community Guidelines, to effectively protect our community, we may consider information available on other platforms and offline to identify violent and extremist individuals and organizations on our platform. If we identify such individuals or organizations on TikTok, we will close their accounts.

Threats and Incitement to Violence

Making threats of violence or incitement to violence that may result in significant harm violates both our Community Guidelines and submission guidelines, and such Sticker content will be rejected or removed from our platform.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Statements of intent to inflict physical injuries on an individual or a group, or attempts to incite others to commit violence.

Dangerous Individuals and Groups

We do not want our platform to be used to enable violence. We consider content depicting and promoting terrorism, terrorist organizations, or terrorists a violation and will reject or remove such stickers from our platform. Content depicting and promoting crime groups and their members are similarly also violative.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Identifiers meant to represent terrorist organizations, crime groups, and their members.

Illegal Activities and Regulated Goods

We work to ensure that TikTok stickers do not enable activities that violate laws or regulations. We prohibit the trade, sale, promotion, and use of certain regulated goods, as well as the depiction, promotion, or facilitation of criminal activities, including human exploitation. Submitted stickers may be rejected or removed if they relate to activities or goods that are illegal or regulated in the majority of the region or world, even if the activities or goods in question are legal in the jurisdiction of posting.

Drugs, Controlled Substances, Alcohol, and Tobacco

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Depictions or promotion of drugs, other controlled substances, and related paraphernalia.
• The trade and promotion of alcohol and tobacco products.
• Admission of use or simulating the influence of drugs.

In certain cases, we may allow exceptions for the neutral depiction of alcohol and tobacco products (for example, the depiction of such products without visible branding, or such a depiction outside of a branded sticker) without promoting them in regions where these products are allowed; however, we will avoid promoting these stickers, particularly to younger users

Firearms, Firearm Accessories, Ammunition, and Explosive Weapons

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• We prohibit the realistic depiction and/or promotion of weapons, such as firearms, firearms accessories, ammunition, or explosive weapons.

In some cases, we may allow exceptions for stickers depicting cartoon, sci-fi, or otherwise unrealistic firearms, accessories, ammunition, and/or explosive weapons that don’t aim at people, animals, and/or other living beings.

Criminal Activity

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Promotion of gambling, prostitution, poaching, and illegal trade of wildlife, human exploitation, and other criminal activities.

User Privacy, Fraud, and Scams

To protect the privacy of our users, we do not permit and will remove content that aims to reveal, solicit, or otherwise “dox” someone’s personal data or personally identifiable information, whether by threat or otherwise.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Frauds and scams: We do not permit anyone to harm others, which includes schemes to defraud others or steal assets. Content that deliberately deceives people in order to gain an unlawful financial advantage is not allowed on the platform.
• Depiction or solicitation of personal data or personally identifiable information.

Violent and Graphic Content

We do not allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking, or that promotes or glorifies abject violence or suffering.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• The depiction of especially vivid, brutal, and realistic acts of violence – whether real, simulated live action, or animated.
• Graphic descriptions or depictions of violence (for example, audio cues) involving humans and/or animals, whether in a realistic or fictional setting.

In certain cases, we may also avoid promoting other graphic stickers that may upset or shock our users, or be otherwise disturbing.

Suicide, Self-Harm, and Dangerous Acts

We do not promote content depicting participation in activities that could lead to harm. We also do not permit content that encourages others to take part in dangerous activities (for example, the depiction and promotion of cosmetic surgery such as facelifts or rhinoplasty). While we do not allow content that promotes or normalizes self-harm, eating disorders or suicide, we may allow content that raise awareness about these issues.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• The depiction, promotion, normalization, or incitation of suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders.
• The depiction or promotion of cosmetic surgery, including facelifts, rhinoplasty, lip augmentation (for example, lip fillers), liposuction, and double eyelid surgery. This includes providing instructions on cosmetic surgery, and depicting surgery lines.
• Stickers that challenge users to repeat any tricks or acts, whether in a non-professional context, or without the necessary skills and safety precautions, that may lead to serious injury or death.

Hateful Behavior

TikTok values the diversity of our global community, and we work hard to foster a welcoming environment. We do not tolerate content that attacks or incites violence against an individual or a group of individuals on the basis of protected attributes. We do not allow content that includes hate speech, and we remove it from our platform. Forms of hateful behavior may include, but are not limited to, sticker content that promotes discrimination on the basis of skin color and negative or racial stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Identifiers meant to represent and/or promote hateful ideology and their representatives.
• Stickers that use or include slurs, or any disparaging terms intending to insult an individual or group based on protected attributes.

Racial and Negative Stereotypes Against Protected Groups

Stickers depicting or promoting racial stereotypes, particularly those that form generalizations about an entire group, can cause social categorization, prejudice and discriminatory behavior and will be rejected or removed. We moreover prohibit content that promotes colorism, a practice of discrimination by which those with lighter skin are treated more favorably than those with darker skin.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Stickers that negatively valence and over-generalize ideas, beliefs, behaviors, or traits attributed to a protected group, or culturally perceived as negative.
• Stickers that disparage disabled people (for example, facial features, body changes, other attempts to change user’s appearances).

Harassment and Bullying

Users should feel safe to express themselves without fear of being shamed, humiliated, bullied, or harassed. We deeply understand the psychological distress that abusive content can have on individuals, and we do not tolerate abusive content or behavior on our platform.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Degrading statements – language used to disrespect, abuse, humiliate, or defame another person (for example, threats of attack or assault against a target or their property; wishing death, serious disease, or other serious harm).
• Digitally altered content with a malicious and/or degrading intent (for example, targeting other TikTok users with the purpose of damaging their reputation).
• Sticker content that includes threats, insults, or abusive language of a sexual nature (for example, inciting others to make sexualized comments, commentary on sexual anatomy, orientation, sexual activity, threats regarding a person’s private sexual life).

Adult Nudity and Sexual Activities

We do not allow sexually explicit or gratifying content inside TikTok Stickers, including animated content of this nature. Sexualized content carries many risks, such as triggering legal penalties in some jurisdictions and causing harm to our users through sharing non-consensual imagery (for example, revenge porn). Also, overtly sexual content can be offensive within certain cultures. We may allow exceptions around nudity and sexually explicit content for educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purposes.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Depictions of real or animated sexual activity, stimulation, or arousal. We moreover will reject or remove stickers that depict, solicits, promotes, normalizes, or otherwise glorifies non-consensual sexual acts or non-consensual touching, including rape and sexual assault.
• Depictions that allude to sexual activity, stimulation, or arousal (for example, simulation, motions or imagery, imitation of sexual facial expressions or sounds).
• Depictions, whether explicit or implicit (for example, implied), of genitalia, female nipples or areola, pubic regions, or buttocks, whether real or animated.
• Sexually explicit and soliciting language (for example, depicting, offering, or requesting sexual acts, imagery, arousal, or stimulation, or language depicting genitalia, female nipples or areola, pubic regions, or buttocks).

Minor Safety

We are deeply committed to child safety and have zero tolerance for predatory or grooming behavior toward minors. We do not allow content that depicts or disseminates child abuse, child nudity, or sexual exploitation of children in both digital and real world format, and we report such content to relevant legal authorities. We also do not allow content depicting minors engaged in harmful or delinquent behavior. Please see our Community Guidelines for more detail regarding permissible content.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• Sexually explicit, soliciting, and otherwise suggestive language involving minors.

Integrity and Authenticity

Content that is intended to deceive, defraud, or mislead any of our community members endangers our trust-based community. We do not allow such content on our platform. This includes, but is not limited to, activities such as spamming, impersonation, disinformation campaigns, and all other sticker content that aims to artificially generate traffic and mimic platform functions to mislead viewers.

Do not submit the following kinds of content in your Sticker(s):

• QR codes or links to external websites.
• Stickers or sticker content that presents methods to generate artificial traffic or mimic platform functions in a misleading way (for example, soliciting mutual interactions such as like-for-like or follow-for-follow, guiding or tricking users into clicking platform buttons).

Photosensitivity

People with photosensitive epilepsy may have seizures triggered by displays that flicker, flash, or blink. This is particularly the case if the flash has a high intensity and is within certain frequency ranges. Given our desire to protect vulnerable users, we will mark the stickers that may trigger photosensitive epilepsy with a warning tag. These include stickers that have flashing lights or contrasting patterns.

Intellectual Property Infringement

• We do not allow content that infringes upon or violates any right of TikTok, its affiliates, or any other third parties, including, without limitation, copyrights, neighboring rights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, or other personal or proprietary rights.
• You must obtain rights, licenses, permissions, clearances and/or approvals necessary in connection with the content you submit. This includes obtaining all necessary rights for musical works and/or sound recording embodied in the content, and being solely liable to pay all applicable royalties for the musical works and/or sound recording.
• Third parties that suspect copyright infringement can follow the instructions at the following link, and suspect trademark infringement can follow the instructions at the following link.

Report a Sticker

If you see an sticker that violates our sticker guidelines, you can report it here. Other issues, bugs or questions related to effects can be submitted here or in the TikTok app by going to your profile page, tapping the button on the top right, and choosing “Report a problem.”

Tag #CreatorPortal in your next TikTok video to share what you learned.