Where it came from

The appeal of badges came from my time with scouts. We wore uniforms that we could cover with them. Some we earned through special assignments (yes, the typical badge-collecting scouts do exist. I was one of them), some received after summer camps and some traded on international camps.

Every single one of them contains a story and acts as a totem, like scars that all tell a tale. As nostalgic, only for more fond memories.

Collecting badges from national parks had its appeal aswell: Covering your favourite backpack with reminders where you’ve been together. But austrias national parks don’t seem to have official ones like the ones in the USA. And trips that went to the backcountry don’t have any visitor centers that would sell them to you either.

Making my own

That’s why I started designing my own in Adobe Illustrator. As you might have already read in my blog entry about journaling, making custom badges didn’t turn out so successful. I found out that letting shops make custom embroideries was not worth the price. At least not for a single badge.The embroidery program usually costs around 50€ per design, every badge then around 10€. This only pays off if you produce multiple badges per design. But that wasn’t my intention, so not suitable for me, sadly.

Alternatively I embroidered by hand. But this got exhausting real soon, and not as pretty as the fine ones you get done professionally.

With the creation of odoratum, the need for a logo arose. I started sketching and trying my luck in Illustrator, but wasn’t really satisfied. So I let it rest for a while. Until Squarespace trial was about to end. Before I could publish the page, I had to finish the logo though. In a second session with my girlfriend we came up with the current one. She drew and polished it for me.

About the logo

The colour palette, consisting of teal, burning orange and shades of green, represent my hiking clothing palette. Dex, my smaller backpack, is teal and orange, Keith, my big backpack green and orange. With those two as a starting point I fashioned myself. Green and orange for backcountry camping, teal and orange for trekking.

The plant is, you guessed it, Odoratum gallium, waldmeister in German. The plant inspired this page in the first place, you might have read it in the About page. And the white rope around the plant is a clove hitch. A very common knot used for constructing things out of wood. Combining the literal odoratum and the german ambiguity. Plant and “wood master”.

The final badge

After researching local embroidery workshops (again) I did find one that was significantly cheaper. diestickfee.at got my order and delivered splendidly. I paid 22€ for the program and 6.50€ per piece in an order of 15 pieces.

And finally: customizing my clothes and gear with my very own logo. A great feeling and accomplishment. Again, my dear helped me tremendously to realise this wish. Thank you.