Design This - Volunteer Buttons

While most of my “Design This” series of posts describe how I turn someone else’s ideas into reality, this post is about another graphic artist that helped me more than I expected in creating volunteer buttons for an event that I coordinated last December. At the time, I knew the artist behind HotDogCrafts on Etsy had the materials and equipment that I didn’t want to invest in to make custom pin back buttons. What I didn’t know was that she was also a talented graphic artist.

I fully expected to get the dimensions that this crafter needed for the graphic and send her a ready to print jpeg for her to use to create the volunteer buttons that I wanted my volunteers to wear at the event so that they could be easily identified. When I sent my initial custom request inquiry, I sent along a graphic of the logo for the event (above) just so that she would get an idea of what I was describing. I was pleasantly surprised when I got back a graphic that she adapted to the round button format using my original photographic art and adding some elements of her own. I liked the font that she chose for the text and the addition of the snowflakes that were color coordinated with my artwork. Another aspect that I loved on her initial work up was that she also color coordinating the text with the graphic. This is a design element that I have found in my work often makes the difference between a good graphic design and a great one.

I only had a very minor change that I wanted made to the placement of the text and top two snowflakes, so I made it and sent the updated graphic back to have it used for my buttons. (The 3D mockup of the finalized button design is the second image in this post.) I was very pleased when I received my order. The printing was excellent and the assembly of the buttons was perfect. I definitely recommend HotDogCrafts for any custom set of pin back buttons that you are in need of.