Hope you and yours had a great Xmas and New Year. I spent the holidays with the family with almost dial-up internet speed. It’s great to be back in the workshop with DSL internet. Just before Christmas the Galway Arts Centre got in touch for some custom button badges. My fave one is the bunny.

The last week or so has been jammers in the HQ. I’ve made lots of cheerleading badges for different groups, you can take a peek over on the Facebook page LINK.

The Dublin Web Summit LINK kicks off today and tomorrow but last week I was contacted by Flight 1337, an Engagement Agency in Amsterdam regarding custom badges. They were one of the companies lucky enough to be selected for the Dublin Web Summit Start-Up Competition this year. They’ll also be debuting the rebranded Flight 1337 as Subatomic Inc., which is aiming to be a full engagement agency including consultancy and design.

They also gave me these epic caramel waffles from Amsterdam. Nom nom nom.

Here in the Spike Badges HQ, minions were struck with illness but we’re back and we now also do 25mm/1 inch magnets just for you.

The shipment of badges and magnets arrived recently. So we now have listings for 25 Custom Magnets and 50 Custom Magnets. We’ve changed the settings on our listings so that you can now order badges *or* magnets from our collections!

So today’s badge release is PROC, otherwise known as People’s Republic of Cork.

Here at the Spike Badges HQ, we were recently contacted by Depaul Ireland to make a large quantity of custom badges ahead of Electric Picnic. The badges were made to the backdrop of a Vampire Diaries marathon.

This will be Depaul Ireland’s fifth year at Electric Picnic. Over the last four years, professional artists have worked alongside people experiencing homelessness to create the ‘Life’s No Picnic On The Streets‘ exhibition at Mindfield in Electric Picnic.

One installation which has caught my eye is the ‘Dear Me’ exhibit. Under a sycamore tree, users of Depaul’s services has letters written by them ten years ago and ten years into the future. These letters are crafted into fabric flowers and planted at its base Festival goers can write their own ‘Dear Me’ letters.

Other installations include ’13.raw’ photographic exhibition; ‘No coins, just change’ and ‘Message in a Mixtape’ with old-style cassettes hidden throughout Electric Picnic for attendees to find.

So if you’re at Electric Picnic next week, call down to the exhibition in the Mindfield area.

We thought you’d like to know how we make our badges here at the Spike Badges HQ. We recently made a custom badge order for pop-up eatery Canteen Limerick and snapped a few pics.

Firstly, when we’re working with someone on a custom badge order, if there’s a possibility that the design could be improved, we’ll give you feedback. In some cases, we’ll take images of prototype badges and send them onto you to sign-off on. Last thing we want to do is give you badges that you’re not happy with.

Normally for custom badge orders, we print 5-10% extra designs between faulty prints and misaligned badges. After sorting out the designs, we got all these lovely badge templates printed up. With a craft knife, the rows are sliced into strips to allow faster cutting with the hand-puncher.

<image - canteen gallies>

Next, the plastic mylar is placed over the punched badge template. The designs are inspected to make sure there’s no imperfections on the paper or trapped fibres or dust motes between the plastic mylar and paper. Badges with white backgrounds take far longer to arrange as every speck shows up.

<image - canteen cutouts and mylar>

Chugging along onto the actual machine work now. The metal button is placed in the machine with paper and mylar is place over it. After positioning them correctly, the table is swished and once the handle is pulled, the parts are compressed together.

<image - canteen cutout in machine>

Next up is placing the pin into the machine. We ensure the pin is placed into the machine at a straight angle which ensures the pin at the back will be straight. A possible fault is if the design and mylar aren’t placed correctly, when turned and it’ll become off-centre when the table is swished. This means the design and pin aren’t lined up and it’ll all be at different angles which is a major fault in our standards.

<image - canteen finished badge>

After we’ve pressed a whole pile of badges, the head minion hand-examines each badge for quality assurance. Passed badges go into holding bags and faulty ones get trashed. After a number of badges have been produced, the badges are taken out of the bags, go through final quality assurance checks again before being counted and dispatched.

And there you have it. That’s our manufacturing process with slight OCD tendencies on quality assurance.

Here at Spike Badges, we were recently contacted to make some custom badges for artist and illustrator Eleanor O’Reilly. As you can see in the above picture, all of the badges turned out fantastic with lovely sharp quality. Due to the detail required in the badges, our printer used 100gsm paper/card and boy they sure turned out great.

Image courtesy of Eleanor Reilly

During the summer we like to stay inside and make badges. We can’t tolerate any heat whatsoever. The fans at full blast, and tall, icy glasses of lemonade is heavenly.

Lemonade is a big plus for us and because of our love for chilled lemonade and desire to stay indoors, we’re offering you up to 25% off custom badges.

You can now nab 50 custom badges for €19.99, 75 for €25.99, 100 for €29.99, 150 for €36.99 and 200 custom badges for €45.99 at a steal.

This is available for a limited time only so get ‘em while they’re hot!

Oo-oo. Oo-oo.

Remember, enjoy lemonade sensibly.

Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!

Avast, ye web lovers, we’re prepping for International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Practice your Yarr! with our Pirate collection. Our faves here are Dead Men Tell No Tales, Head Wench and Where’s the Rum!

I’ll be hearing no talk of anti-piratey measures.

Go forth and pilfer, purloin and pillage.

Arrr!