Badges may make a profitable business. Anyone can do it with the right materials and equipment at hand. Firstly you will need a specific badge-making machine that assembles and presses the different parts of the badge together. It can either be manual presses or electric assembly badge makers that do production in big numbers.
The first thing to consider in making a badge is the design. You may customize these by either hand-drawing or by using graphic editing software. The most popular would probably be Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. The innermost circle shall be the button face which is where the design goes. The outermost circle is an allowance that will be folded in and hidden once the buttons have been pressed. Also, make sure that the design size or diameter matches that of the machine.
You can print out your designs using an inkjet or laser printer and use the inkjet paper to get more vibrant color and design. There are different ways of cutting your designs out. This, however, takes up a lot of effort and time. An adjustable rotary cutter is a machine that caters to different diameters for your button badges. It is used by people who are on tight budget but do not want to pick up a pair of scissors. Then again, the cutter is slightly difficult to use, sometimes inaccurate with its preset sizes and may be time-consuming. A graphic punch (die puncher) is a more expensive but professional cutter that produces accurate results, is efficient and user-friendly, and is highly durable as it does not use any blades that may become dull. It can also punch bunches of more than 500 buttons.
Now that the designs have been cut out, it is on to the last stage of making button badges. Badge makers may differ in procedure but generally, you put your cut-out design, the metal shells, and a thin clear plastic cover called Mylar into separate rings. Arrange and stack these rings accordingly with the cut-out design in the middle then align them under the machine. Pull the handle all the way down and release. Remove it from the badge maker and attach the pin back to the metal shell. This is what you use to attach onto your clothes, bags, or hats. Voila! You have now completed one badge. Repeat these steps and you are on your way to producing a successful set of button badges!
