Button badges move across the pond

Button badges become a marketing tool
God save the Queen
Perhaps one of the most popular uses for button badges has been within the music industry. Bands throughout the 60’s saw the opportunity and began producing badges as an affordable and versatile form of promotional merchandise, but it wasn’t until the 1970’s and the Punk explosion that badges and their musical connections would be cemented forever.
London was the hub of the Punk movement in the UK, home to infamous venues and establishments such as The Roundhouse, The 100 Club and the NO.TOM guitar shop on tin pan alley. One of the most recognised areas being Portobello road, widely regarded as the epicentre for the punk movement in 70’s London. Here, ‘Better Badges’ was formed. Another punk landmark famous for their affiliation with such bands as the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.
Yes badges and zine’s – often manufactured and printed under the same roof – were essential, customary for Punk and its many sub genres. As we shuttled through the 20th century badges really came into their own, increasingly adopted by an array of acts from Joy Division, Elvis Costello to Blur – crafted with increasing intelligence and detail.
It’s a digital world – but not completely
