funkybadges.com produce exclusive button badges for everyone. all our products are top quality and produced in the uk. funky badges from bristol uk. graffiti styles, shapes, exclusive designs, skull and crossbones, origami patterns and more. all available to buy online. some of our badges use details from graffiti taken all over the world. more of our pin badges feature exclusive designs only available from the funky badges website, including mushrooms, animals, faces, skull and crossbones and shapes. other button badges utilise origami paper from japan to produce lovely sets that you can coordinate with your clothing and accessories. all our badges so far come 25mm in diameter. we have sets of three and four badges that you can select from - come and take a look!
here follows a history of badges for your information...
Badges are unspoken messages. They express identity, indicate membership, declare beliefs or make a fashion statement. They can be subtle or direct, serious or humorous. They provoke strong reactions: approval, respect, fear or hostility.
Badges were first mass-produced in Rome during the twelfth century AD. They depicted St Peter and St Paul and were purchased by pilgrims to show their devotion and as proof of their pilgrimage. Members of guilds (associations of merchants or craftsmen) then started wearing badges to indicate their professional status. Cheap and quick badge-making technology later captured the imagination of campaigners: in 1807 William Wilberforce ordered 50,000 anti-slavery medals.
One Inch Button Badges were first produced in the USA towards the end of the Nineteenth Century as a low cost alternative to the medallions, pendants and "badges" of the day that were expensive to make. The invention of celluloid in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt gave the world its first semi-synthetic plastic and it was crucial in the development of a whole new range of products including button badges. Thin sheets of celluloid could be used to cover paper and give the effect of the traditional enamel badge without the cost or labour skills needed to work with enamel. It also meant that less metal could be used in producing badges and there was no longer any need for soldering or screwing.
All that was needed was a printed image and a thin sheet of celluloid to cover it (both cut the size, usually circular and one inch in diameter, with the celluloid slightly overlapping the paper so that it would hold it in place). A pressed metal shell was produced and a simple machine used to press the paper, celluloid and shell together. A metal ring was then attached to the back of the badge to hold the badge together, again by the use of a simple press. Finally a pin was clipped into the back of the badge so that it could be fixed to an item of clothing.
1 Inch button badges were and still are called buttons or pins, particularly in the USA, but in the UK they are best known as button badges - for no other reason than they are more often than not the size of a button.
Plastic badges have been made in recent years, but the traditional metal button badges are still made in the same way and to the same high standard as they were over 100 years ago. Certainly the components used haven't changed for decades, with the only real difference between the early button badges and the ones made today being the use of plastic acetates instead of celluloid ones and a D pin instead of an open pin.
Some of the first buttons to appear in the UK were produced to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. The badges were cheap to buy and made popular souvenirs of what was a huge occasion in Britain at the time.
The New Jersey company of Whitehead & Hoag were one of the biggest manufacturers of one inch circular button badges during the first half of the twentieth century and they were responsible for the production of the Boer War badges that arrived in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. With messages like "Only One Order - Forward!" and "England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty", they proved very popular in a country gripped by the wave of patriotism that accompanied the war. Today's love of button badges among the young though dates back to the 1960s and early Seventies when they were used by students, hippies and musicians as a symbol of protest. John Lennon for one loved them and from then onwards the one inch button badge has always been seen as a cool thing to wear
The London Emblem Company started selling badge-making machines in the 1970s, giving greater freedom of expression to individuals and small groups. It was the arrival of the Sex Pistols and punk in 1976 though that was to make the button badge an essential fashion statement. For the next decade, people all over the world displayed their allegiance to a band, music, youth cult or cause by wearing one or more button badges. Despite lulls in their popularity since, they remain a firm favourite today and are enjoying something of a revival in fortunes of late. Badges are as popular as ever in the twenty-first century: at Christmas 2003 badge-making kits were widely reported as Britain's bestselling children's toy.
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funky badges 51 washington avenue bristol, bs5 6bt, uk tel: +44 (0)845 644 2814
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