Graphics Design: Badges

DUE DATE FOR ART IS AT LEAST 1 WEEK BEFORE THE CLOSE OF PREREGISTRATION SO THAT THERE'S TIME TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THE BADGE DESIGNS.

Badge pouches are 3"x4" so badges need to be smaller than that. BACON puts 3"x4" files next to each other on an 8.5x11" page with a .18" bleed. Inside of that should be another .18" to .25" of "safe zone" where there isn't anything important.

Final individual badge files should be exactly 900px wide by 1200px high, and a *.png file. There should be no black border or any visible bleed marks in the badge files. These files are fed into BACON and PHP combines our badge lists with the right images.

Final files are named as follows:

• ArtistBadge.png
• GuestBadge.png
• RegularBadge.png (and RegularBadge1.png in 2015 we had two general badges)
• StaffBadge.png
• VendorBadge.png

General Attendee

General badges need to use the main con mascot for the year and match the general marketing materials used for the year.

Guest

We have never had a complaint over the guest badge design. It just needs to be different than the other designs. Guests are either being paid to be here or are here to market themselves - getting a cool badge is not one of their priorities (sometimes guests don’t even want to bother picking up their badge).

Vendor

Vendor badge designs seems to be more about us giving vendors something we want them to have than the vendors wanting something specific. The vendors don't seem to care about their badge design. They just want to get into their space and sell.

Artist

Artist badges need to be the prettiest, coolest, or 'artsy-est' of our badge designs.

Keep in mind, however, that no matter what badge design is given to the artists, there will always be artists who complain about their badges. Don’t take it personally - artists are impossible to please.

Staff

Staff badges need to be different than the general badges but still be cool looking. We’re the freaking staff and attendees should to want to be us. Our badges should be better than the general badges even though we probably will be getting a secondary mascot or completely different design.

Special Things

Staff badges get special randomness added to them so that the staff have an extra fun thing they get. Some staff do not care, but many of us love to look at each other’s badges and compare special items.

• 2011 Weakness and Status (not theme related)
• 2012 Weakness (In Space)
• 2013 Improvised Weapon (Apocalypse)
• 2014 Prepared Spell (Magic Theme)
• 2015 Whodunit and What With (Mystery)

Items are added to a large array and chosen at random. However, roughly 10% of the badges are rerun for various reasons. The most common reason was the random item came up too many times.

Combining TIFFs Into a PDF

BACON exports the badge pages as a collection of TIFF files. We then use Acrobat to combine those images into a single PDF to send to the printer. This requires real Acrobat, not Adobe Reader.

To prevent artifacts, first you need to configure Acrobat to use lossless compression when importing images.

1. Open the preferences window by clicking "Edit -> Preferences".
2. Select the "Convert to PDF" category.
3. Select "TIFF" in the "Converting to PDF" box.
4. Click "Edit Settings".
5. Configure the format settings dialog as shown in the image at right.

To make the PDF:

1. Open Acrobat.
2. Click "File -> Create -> Combine Files into a Single PDF..."
3. Use the "Add Files" menu to add your images to the batch.
4. Check that the files are in the right order in the list. Drag them into place if not.
5. Make sure "Single PDF" is selected in the top right.
6. Make sure the biggest page icon is selected in the bottom right.
7. Click "Combine Files".