Making Merchandise: Badges

On the week commencing 18/10/21, our task was to create eight badges (matching or individual) as merchandise for our chosen artist or band, so, I created a collection of eight matching badges for my chosen band, Set It Off.

Final Designs

I began by creating my designs on Illustrator, printing them out, and creating them as badges using a badge maker. The steps were as follows:

1. Print out the designs

2. Cut out the badges using a circle cutter

3. Place a metal backing, my design, and a plastic film into the badge maker

4. Pull the lever on the badge maker to secure the backing, paper and film

5. Put the pin backing inside the badge maker and pull the lever to secure the backing to the rest of the badge

6. Open up the badge maker and collect the finished badge

7. Repeat steps 2-7 for the other designs

Reflection

Overall, I'm really happy with my designs. I went for a retro typeface that seems to be popular currently, and went with a blue colour scheme that fitted the theme of their album 'Midnight'. I used words, lyrics and imagery from their album. I think the designs look polished and co-ordinate together really well. The white areas of my design ensure that the main elements stand out, and leave the slightly lighter blue elements to hide in the background, but still remain visible to add depth to the badge design.

Upon reflection of my badge designs, I encountered a few mishaps and mistakes. I realised that after creating my badges, I had some typos. I had misspelt the names of Maxx (Set It Off drummer) and Zach (Set It Off lead guitarist). I have amended this on my final design, so I would like to revisit and recreate those two badges.

Misspelt Badge Designs

One badge didn't quite work when I created the badge; the film wasn't attached. This is probably due to the fact I hadn't used a badge maker before!

A badge without the plastic film

There were a few mishaps design-wise when I went to create my badges. When I initially printed out my badge templates, the slight contrast between the two blues was virtually non-existent, so I had to increase the brightness of the lighter blue to show the slight contrast, and finally re-print.

Secondly, when I created my badges using the badge maker, some of my designs spanned larger across the badge than I wanted them to. The 'SET IT OFF' design ended up spanning from the far right edge, all the way to the far left edge, when in actuality, I wanted space between the edge of the badge and the main design. The writing was also lower than the centre.

A badge without spaces on the edges, and an off-centre design

I also found that I had left areas of the Cody's face badge black when they were supposed to match the blue background.

[Picture incoming]

When I go back to these badges, I would scale down the effected designs to create the perfect set of badges. Otherwise, I'm pleased with my other badges that turned out as planned, and one the other design issues are ironed out, I'm sure my badges will look great as a group!