Badge a day Christmas Countdown
January 2020
The badge collector's Christmas jumper got well covered in December 2019 - with a nod to election week in the middle of the month. Yet another collection became the content for my online advent calendar. This one was particularly close to home as once upon a time I ran a small badge-making venture.
That was then and this is now
I established the enterprise as a new parent taking a career break and looking to change direction. Many people wrote their own badges, or added to templates on the stalls. Beer festivals were particularly popular venues - one of my stock items, the 'I'm with these idiots' badge pointing left and right usually being the first to sell out. There's a blog page about the badge company here. There used to be a Flash version of the page linked here which included spinning badges and the sound of the clattering of the badge backs when you selected a group of badges on the page. For those who are nostalgic about the sound of badge production, here's the soundbite. Sadly, Flash is no longer web friendly.
I ran the company for about seven years by which time both my children were brilliant at circles. I wound it up having become more interested in a wider range and depth of graphic design than the marketing of one specific product. One of my two machines went to the Pre School Playgroup Association for fund-raising activities, while the other one went to a Rod Stewart fan club based in the Erdington area.
I was delighted to find earlier this year that a complete set of my hand coloured diffraction foil Christmas badges had been kept intact, so decided to cover a Christmas jumper with badges from our family collection accumulated over the years, and then bring the Christmas set in on 25th (see image above) You can see all the badges collected on the 2019 Christmas jumper on the counting2xmas website linked here.
I needed to get hold of a few more festive badges to complement our family collection and found a couple in a card shop, and others from a very useful website for collectors - retrobadge.co.uk. If you want a badge with Dr Spock or a Dalek wearing a Christmas hat ready for next year, that's the place to look.
The Badge a Day advent calendar was the usual mix of being a personal project and an extra xmas greeting for friends and family as well as being a marketing tool for freelance graphics. The calendars have a Facebook page for comments. There may or may not be another calendar next year, but I usually find it too difficult to resist.
