"How to spread the green message" - Protest badge-making workshop
Activity summary: A 30-minute (ish) talk + craft activity for GreenSEO, the sustainability-focused fringe event for brightonSEO.
Twice a year, Brighton hosts a massive conference called brightonSEO (SEO stands for 'search engine optimisation', which is an area of digital marketing).
GreenSEO is a fringe event for marketing and tech people who are passionate about making their industry more sustainable. The event usually runs the evening before the main conference and is an opportunity for people to learn, share, and network. You can learn more about it here: https://greenseo.org/.
When I was invited to speak at GreenSEO, I wanted to do something that would...
- Get people in the room talking with each other
- Help generate conversation at the conference the next day
This led me to thinking about protest badges. There's a rich history of badge making in activism – they're a low-effort way to spread a message. And a craft activity where people can make their own would help facilitate conversation, especially amongst strangers.
Creating a framework
I knew I wanted to talk about the history of protest badges to give the craft activity some context. So the first step was coming up with a framework that would link the past with the present – or more accurately, activism (and arts and crafts) with a tech conference.
I had used the 'Here, There, Everywhere' exercise as a basis for another craft activity – you can read about that one in my post, A collage-based activity to settle your mind after a large mental meal.
For GreenSEO, I flipped the order and changed the metaphor from space to time, thus 'Everywhere' provided the historical context, 'There' linked activism to the more modern (and audience-relevant) tech world, and 'Here' was the activity itself that we would do that evening.
Research at Bishopsgate Institute
Although I’ve done plenty of research in my time, it’s very rare I get to do it with Actual Things in an Actual Archive. As I wanted to show protest badges in action, I used this as an excuse to visit the Bishopsgate Institute at long last.
Reader, it was great. I uncovered some great stories about badges – including 'Cat Lovers Against The Bomb', a phrase depicted on a badge that crossed the Atlantic and sparked a fundraising project that continues to this day.
Looking at collections of badges also provided inspiration for design prompts, such as:
- Celebrate milestones
- Borrow symbolism
- Use song lyrics
- Write a mission statement
Materials
In any activity / workshop, the materials are just as important as the framework in creating a cohesive, on-theme experience.
I always try to use repurposed materials as much as possible when running a workshop, but it was particularly important at this sustainability-focused event to have a minimal environmental impact.
Most of the materials I used at GreenSEO were already in my stash (pencils and pens, glue, scissors, magazines etc). A trip to the Brighton Scrap Space was also useful in providing stickers (top tip – if you're time poor, or facilitating an activity with a group that might not consider themselves as 'artsy', stickers are a great addition to the materials pile, plus they make less mess than collage).
The actual badges needed a little more creative thinking. I thought about hiring a badge maker, but it would be difficult for a large group to make their badges in a short timeframe. There also would be some single-used plastic involved.
Thankfully, the Scrap Space provided the answer in the form of leftover plastic clips for ID badges. I made badge templates using card from old folders (rounding the corners, naturally), then made holes at the top for the clips.
Final musings
I was slightly anxious about running this workshop. Arts and crafts are unusual in tech spaces. While I had ran similar workshops in the past, those had mainly been for designers who are generally a bit more visual.
Luckily, everyone at GreenSEO embraced the creative process and got stuck in 🤩
Here are the presentation slides for anyone curious about protest badges and would like to make their own...
Cross-pollination
