Essay

Editorial Process: Essay 

For my anthology I decided to base it around my Badge collection.  Badges can be symbolised in all shapes and forms. We can categorise them in many different ways, colour Co-ordination, typographic, visual imagery, type of material used metal plastic or cloth. Badges are all around us and used for anything from advertising business companies, promotions, for clubs, military, youth movement, people or pop & rock bands to name just a few. 

Badges can often tell a story, such as depicting a memory for instance, badges are used to exhibit various achievements, lifelong accomplishments, merit, reward or simply a name. In sport badges are found across the board, the Olympic movement use medals as a reward for finishing in the top three of a sports event.

 

 Football teams sell club badges to promote their clubs & cup winning sides are given medals for playing in the final of a competition. Anyone working in the NHS wears a name badge to show they are part of the work force, Scouts & Guides award badges for achievement and the Military issue medals for gallantry & for serving in an active war zone. Every November we commemorate Military personal with Poppies for fighting to keep the world a safer place. The badges symbolise the story of their experiences during WW1 & 2, badge many lost their lives or received severe injuries. The poppy appeal helps support service personal today either old veteran soldiers or young soldiers injured in a conflict. Poppies symbolise badges we wear to remember people who fought for their country.  

 

Practically anywhere you go, you are likely to come across a badge; from gift shops, venues for live performances, for campaigning and as I stated badges can be used to communicate various themes that we come across today in the world. These visual Communicators may cover, political movements across the globe or propaganda, peace, war or sexuality.

Key themes that are well established today, are the LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter movements.

Even on the themes of campaigning against prejudice, such as the “Shylock the Jew monologue” written in Shakespearean times with reference to “For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe”. Badges are very common & readily available these days, even in the world of travel and tourism, you find badges promoting their products in the gift shops & travel shops, many offering badges as keepsakes as a reminder of their holiday or visit. 

As briefly mentioned before the Scouts & Guides movement, with their clubs & camps help youngsters, by encouraging them to learn basic survival & life skills. These skills when perfected earn them a badge depicting this skill.

When I was younger I became a Rainbows Girl Guides myself and still have a couple badges from my association with them. 

 

Badges can be cheap to manufacture, simple creations offered as collectables and mass produced offering many people of a reminder or memory of a special day out or concert maybe. Badges are also good for marketing and promotional purposes especially at big events, as promotional merchandise. 

Pop culture produces many badges created for fandom – this is not only my point of view but also that of Peter Blake’s who created a Self-portrait of himself with Badges on his shirt in 1961 (Fig 1) incorporated the themes of pop culture for the marketing trades and of course current trends.

 

I collected badges throughout my childhood, I used to make my own badges using a very basic badge press that I received one Christmas. I collected badges from various birthdays, bought badges from countries & places I visited which included holiday destinations, zoo’s restaurants and shows, to name just a few. 

Did you know a young Tracey Emin and friend Sarah Lucas’s ed on a project called The Last Night of the Shop, for a 6 Month period finishing on 3^rd July 1993 when the shop closed on Emin’s 13^th Birthday, due to a party for 'Fuckin' Fantastic at 30 and Just About Old Enough to do Whatever She Wants', which was sponsored by Zeiss beer. 

 

This collaborative piece they made, to market their work where both of them displayed over a one hundred hand-made paper badges covering the themes of Pop culture, current trends, cartoons and political figures in the headlines.  The paper badges Emin and Lucas made were fixed onto a cotton corduroy wall which was a hanging display where the badges they made, were sold in the Shop during the 6 months period it was open. (Image shown in Fig 2) Again adding more meaning to the use of badges representing various milestones. 

 

Like Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas, I have kept my badges through the years I used to get them from a local music shop, from magazines and even at Comic Com conventions for fandom, with some being enamel pins and others just button badges providing the vast majority of my badge collection. For me, badge collecting is a lifelong phenomenon, with a chronicle left behind them. 

I find the history of badges to be incredible, how they were established, created and the meaning behind them, that even have an exhibition at The British Museum covering badges from various decades. 

 

Covering themes of War, Politics, Sexuality and more to which I had previously mentioned. In terms of covering the themes of LATCH. (Which was discovered by Richard Saul Williams in 1996) I would categorise them in groups of colours or an alphabetical order of the colours, along with height order all arranged together in a timeline, which is one of the more interesting ways of ordering my badges in a visual sense this further enables an understanding of the history behind my collection, as a source said in an interview about badge collecting “seeing badges in a timeline is an evolution of my life through badges.”

 

The button badge was invented by Benjamin S. Whitehead in 1893, 24 years after Celluloid plastic was invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1869. Button badges became wildely popular to the point where the first button badges that were mass produced in the UK were worn to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. 

It is just amazing how diverse badges really are, and how many are produced across the globe either by children at schools, home-made or industrially manufactured. From commemorative, promotional, fandom or showing courage to be found in the shape of medals, enamel pins, buttons, brooches, paper or plastic badges

 

As I have collected my badges, I realised each one has its own quirk, like each person; each badge is manufactured differently with various meanings, showing different marks, colours, designs and aesthetics (designs), which I find absolutely fascinating.  I sometimes study certain badges because it inspires me to want to find out more about the item, find the story behind the badge.

For instance, my friend has recently gained an apprenticeship with the NHS and she must wear a badge at all times enabling others to see at a glance that she works in the hospital.  

 

My Great Great Grandad earnt medals for service in the army through to WW1, and my other great grandad had a badge/pin for his service too which was a pin badges having a pin at the top through a coloured braid supporting the medal. My late Grandpa served his National Service with the Air Force and my late Grandad with the navy both collected pins from this era. It is remarkably interesting seeing how badges are made, with many different materials and the variety of ways they are created as well as the story behind them. 

The thing I love most about badges is how inventive you can be with them, you can put your personal mark on badges in so many different ways, basically you can let your imagination and creativity run wild, I just love how diverse badges can be.  

 

Badges can be made out of almost anything, but the most common are metal ones. These are more commonly used in today’s markets. I love the history and nostalgic notions of badges, what they are made from and how. Metal pins known as Enamel Pins, are believed to have originated 3,800 years ago back 1800 B.C by the Egyptians who began the in-layering and enamelling process. China designed the first Enamel/Lapel pins.

Even the badges I own have their own history behind them.

 

As I grew older I collected Lapel and enamel pins which were mostly remembrance badges or branding badges to promote things like Dr Martens boots and the likes to being lucky enough to be awarded two blue peter badges, for reviewing an episode of their show and for writing a story about a camping trip I went on few years back, honest.  Which to me is like a children’s equivalent to an MBE and is a meaningful accomplishment, to think a biographical piece of creative writing could get me the honour of earning a Blue Peter Badge. The Blue peter badge was cleverly designed in 1952 by Tony Hart, (Figs: 3 & 4) (this guy also presented Vision-on and designed Morph) The design of the badge is inspired by his artwork called The Pirate Humpty Dumpty. (Fig 5) When the badge was launched on the BBC TV show Blue Peter, on 17^th July 1963.  I love my Blue Peter badges and the story behind The Blue Peter badge the history of the emblem. 

In conclusion badges are almost everywhere, from shop signs, achievements in sport or survival skills to promotions and celebrations.  Collecting badges can be an exhilarating experience, for keeping a record on memories of past rewarding milestones and accomplishments.  The story of the item is the most important thing to me and the meaning behind it. 

I find that badges are symbolic ways to display those factors.  I am looking forward to expanding my collection further along with learning more about history behind the badges and to have more stories to tell about my badge collection to maybe encourage others to start collecting badges too or to find more interest in them.