Case Study - St Saviour’s & St Olave’s – School Year Pin Badges

We have worked with St SaviourÂ’s & St OlaveÂ’s School for a number of years. The challenge was to develop a simple solution that would allow staff, students and the wider school community to identify each individual student by their unique house group and individual year groups. They also wanted a branded promotional product that would be easily identifiable, and could be worn by each and every student. The purpose of this was to provide the function of simple identification and pupil management for staff of large student groups, within the school.

HappysmileÂ’s solution:

We naturally looked at existing pin badge solutions readily available within the market place as we felt this would be the most cost effective and practical solution. However, after further investigation, it became apparent that the majority was cumbersome and impractical.

The most common solution was to have a colour badge to identify the house group and use text to separate each individual year group. However, in order to keep these badges relatively small since they were going to be worn on pupils blazers, the text was too small and illegible from a distance, not to mention they did not look very attractive!

Instead, we put forward the idea of producing and branding a circular pin badge with concentric circles. The badge would be supplied in five base colours to represent each house group. The design element would be a simple gold metal circle, which would go up to 5 circles in total, to show each different year group. We laid out a few designs trying to get the line weight just right and it was decided that the smallest circle would be in-filled so that differentiation between the badges with a 3, 4 and 5 circular design was clearly evident. At this point we produced a full set of pre production samples for final approval during the summer recess before producing in time for the commencement of the new school year.

Why our service stands out from the rest!

The use of design and creativity has produced a simple solution that is timeless and has become a fabric of the school and will always be part of the studentÂ’s history and will be kept as a memento of these key chapters of their lives.

End result:

The iron stamped soft enamel metal pin badges were produced in five designs and colours with the border and all detail produced in raised brass, complete with a recessed and soft enamel background finished with a low epoxy coating and a broach fitting. The badges have been reordered year on year and have been well received by staff and students alike.