20 Great Button Badge Design Ideas - Part 2
03 Jun 2021
There are virtually no limits to the ways that you can customise your button badges. Here to help with your inspiration is part two of our guide to button badge design.
#6 Make Them Laugh
The tradition of using humour on badges probably goes as far back as the history of badges themselves.
A badge is a great medium for carrying an amusing slogan. Rather like a car bumper sticker, the joke is shared by all who pass by. Crucial to the success is brevity – the one liner or sarcastic comment is probably the way to go here.
Of course humour is subjective, so whether you appreciate the joke is down to you!
The best approach for a humorous badge is to ensure it is as legible as possible from as far away as possible. If you are going for funny on a badge, there isn’t much point trying to be subtle about it!
#7 All for Charity
One of the best uses of badges is to raise awareness and to raise funds for charities.
Badges are perfect tokens to give away in return for a donation, a fact that is recognised and endorsed by government, who allow us to zero-rate the VAT if the badges are being given away free as an acknowledgement to donors:
Alternatively badges can be sold to raise funds (no VAT exemption). But whether sold or given away, the badges subsequently become adverts for the charity, spreading the message as widely as the badge-wearers travel.
Awareness badges can simply carry the logo of a charity, or they can carry a specific message. Similarly the design can reference a specific event, or if being used to recognise supporters the badges can let people proclaim their support with pride!
#8 Mark the Event
If you want to commemorate an event, you need a design that is worth keeping hold of.
To create a memento of an event that people will really want to keep, it is worth spending some time creating a nice design.
Perhaps we had better start with the basics: the name of your event and the date that it is being (or has been) held. Think about positioning these in areas where the text can be given good contrast against a background colour. If your event is an annual affair, then the date becomes even more important. You may even find that participants or visitors collect each year’s badge.
Now you need an image that sums up your event as best as possible. Do you have a photograph of the venue, or any marketing material that is particularly associated with the event? Is there a specific activity that should be shown clearly on the badge, or are there a host of different aspects that need to be reflected?
If you get the design right, the badges can serve as reminders of a great time but also as adverts for the next iteration of your event.
#9 High Contrast
When it comes to design rules, the most important rule to remember is that all rules can be broken.
That said, when it comes to design on what is the relatively small canvas of a badge, it is really worth thinking about simplicity
and high contrast. You want your badge to make maximum impact using only a small area, and the best way to achieve this
is to use strong bursts of colour that stick out from each other and draw the eye.
In particular, text can easily be lost in the background unless you ensure that the contrast is strong with the colour behind it. Often people imagine that black text will provide the more readable effect, but unless the background is white or very pale it is often better to colour the text white for maximum readability.
Additionally, remember than in real life the colours of the final printed products may not appear exactly as they do on a computer screen – typically computer screens are lit so that the colours appear more brilliant than is possible in print.
Keeping your design and your fonts blocky will help enhance the contrast effect.
#10 I'm a Rock and Roll Star
Bands want badges like Robson
wants Jerome, as the King Blues once memorably didn’t quite sing.
When forming a band, getting badges will be right at the top of the agenda, just below agreeing on your stage wear and thinking about writing some songs.
If fact, forget recording or playing anything, what really makes you feel like you have arrived as a band is the first delivery of merchandise!
Badges are perfect for bands because a band pin is something that has always been fashionable to wear, whatever the genre or era. Generally speaking, badges for bands are made in the classic one inch / 25mm size. Small enough to be cool, the trendy badge wearer can play host to a whole collection on their jacket.
Badges are of course intrinsically linked to a sense of identity, and by wearing the badges of your favourite bands you are showcasing your identity for the world to see.
