Gavin Lucas writes for Creative Review, my favourite design magazine, and I first heard about this book on their blog. I filed it away in my brain and then spotted a copy at the National Museum of Scotland months later when I was over for Gifted and had to buy it. As the name would suggest, Badge Button Pin is a book about badges (or buttons or pins, depending on your local lingo), those awesome accessories some us are seriously addicted to. I imagine quite a few people reading this have a tin full of random badges somewhere.
The book is split into a few sections covering badge designers, promotional badges and badges in art as well as a look at some special badges commissioned for the book. There’s little interviews with the designers and lots of colour photos which makes it really fun to leaf through. I’ve picked out a few of my favourite pages below but there’s everything from diy crafting through to high fashion, subversive art to witty design. It’s a real wealth of inspiration and has me planning lots of new projects, though that was after dashing a few previous plans which I discovered had already been executed to great effect in the book. I definitely recommend picking up a copy if you have any interest in badges or design.
Lots of the designers featured sell their badges through prickie. Beware though as it’s all too easy to buy a handful of badges.
Mark Pawson – the king of badgemaking. I have a set of his badges made from the insides of envelopes.
Cute character badges and brooches by Peskimo
Cross stitch badges by Neal Whittington
Consumer Choice badges by Wayne Daly – each badge costs the price of the price tag it’s made with!
Buy Badge / Button / Pin at Amazon >>
