Event coordinators have an important job to complete and professionals all over the world are counting on them to help forge and build updated connections, bringing together businesses at their events and meetups. As a coordinator, it’s up to you to make sure that all the name badges attendees are wearing are designed carefully. If you make a serious mistake while designing these things, or you leave someone else in charge, then this may become a big mistake that will impact the effectiveness of your major event greatly. Here’s an overview of some common design mistakes that event coordinators make with their name badges.
The Benefits of a Well-Designed Name Badge
Well-designed name badges can make your company look much more professional. They help events run more smoothly as a whole and give you more positive results for your efforts overall. When you issue top quality name badges that rely on good quality materials, it shows that you care about the event and that you are a reliable company. Sure, the badges won’t cost you much money – even the really good ones – but they make a huge impression.
The right name badges also make it easier for attendees to introduce themselves to one another, and also for people to form new relationships. While this won’t directly impact you during the event, it will leave all the professionals feeling better about your event. This will increase attendance in future events and likely earn you some referral traffic as well, which is always a good thing.
Overall, name badges are a highly effective and affordable method for fine-tuning your meetups and to get as much as you possibly can out of them. There are many ways that you can mess them up, so read through this list of the top 10 ways to mess up a name badge design, and work hard to avoid each and every one of these common mistakes:
1. A Single Lanyard Connection
One of the biggest mistakes made during the creation process of event name tags is utilizing a single lanyard connection point. This makes it easy for the tag to spin around during use and will lead to many users getting stuck with tags that aren’t facing the right direction during social events. A tag flipped backward will prevent others from approaching the wearer, leading to less-than-desirable situations.
2. Small or Unclear Font
Always remember this golden rule for name badges: the font must be large and it must be very clear. It needs to be readable from up to 10 or 15 feet away for optimal results, and that’s what creators should be focused on the most. When putting together a name badge, always be sure to try and read it from many feet away to see just how clear it is. If the font is too small to see clearly, or the font is a fancy format that’s difficult to make out, switch things around until you end up with a clear font that’s simple to read.
3. Gaudy Logos or Excessive Coloration
One of the most powerful tools is also one of the sources of common name badge mistakes, and that’s color. It’s good to infuse a bit of color into the sections of a name badge that you want to accent as much as possible. It’s not good to use multiple colors throughout the tag or to use colors on most of the tag surface. Doing either of those things takes away all the benefit of using colors, to begin with, and it can actually make the badge more difficult to read as well.
4. Typos or Other Obvious Errors
While this is one of the least common name tag mistakes to avoid, it’s also one of the most glaring and disruptive. Whenever a part of the tag is customized and printed in advance, double check that all the information is right. Every company name must be spelled properly and the event name should be double or triple checked as well. Be very careful to avoid a major typo when creating the name badge or you’ll end up being the central focus of the conversation in a negative way.
5. Too Much Content
Name badges are a good opportunity to advertise and reveal important information, which is why it’s easy to try and cram in way too many details on the small piece of cardstock. Simplicity is one of the most important unwritten rules of name badge etiquette, and it’s something that you should strive for every time that you design a new tag. Avoid too many pictures, too many words and just too much of anything when designing the badge. Instead, keep the message clear and simple so that it’s obvious what you are trying to say.
6. Using Low-Quality Materials
As the event coordinator, the name badges that you make available say a lot about your company and the event itself. It’s your chance to make an impression, so don’t squander that chance by trying to be cheap. Out of all the name badge mistakes to avoid, this is the worst one of all. Utilizing low-quality materials will hurt your brand quality, make the event look less professional, and it could lead to needing replacement badges before the event is even over. Overall, it’s one of the worst things that you can do, so invest in high quality and durable materials.
7. Design without Purpose
Another one of the mistakes in name badges is putting together a design without actually knowing what the main purpose of the event and the badges is. Take a moment to ask yourself these questions:
- What will people be doing at the event?
- Are they getting to know one another?
- Are they forming new business relationships?
- Are they showing off their new technology?
Whatever the purpose is, it’s important that the name tags support that purpose first and foremost. So figure out what that purpose is, and then keep the information on the tags concise and to the point for the biggest impact.
8. Not Enough Information
While I stress the importance of not cramming too much information onto a name badge, it’s just as easy to take that advice and move too far in the wrong direction. Designers sometimes put together badges that have too little information. Find out the most important details that attendees want on display, and make sure that they are present on the badge. This is important name tag etiquette. If you do that, you shouldn’t have to worry about the attendees being upset with the end results.
9. Not Marketing on the Tag
Everyone at the event is going to see these name tags multiple times. If you aren’t taking that opportunity to market yourself in some way, you are missing a major chance. Be sure to include some little bit of branding or some little logo or slogan. It could even be something about your company when you create the design. It’s an important step to creating a name badge and it isn’t something that you want to skip over during the process.
10. Not Getting a Second Opinion
It’s so easy for you to miss a key design mishap when you are the only one looking at a badge design. Take every opportunity that you can to show off your design to other people that have an interest in the event. You’ll get important feedback and will likely be able to improve the design before it’s printed out and finalized.
Even if you aren’t the person in charge of the design process, it’s important that you are watching out for these mistakes. Always make sure to look over the final design, and consider pointing your design professionals toward this article before they even start the process. No matter how much experience a pro has with putting together name tags, it is likely that there is something that they can still learn about the design process and do things better.
Also, consider collecting feedback after an event about the positives and negatives of the name tags. Use this information to further refine the results and come up with even better tags in the future. These guidelines are just general best practices, and there are likely many other ways to refine name badges and make them even more effective. Just make sure that you aren’t missing out on other opportunities to do the tags as good as possible, otherwise, you’ll regret it later on.
Conclusion
All this advice should make it easy for you to design the absolute best name badge that you can. Too many event coordinators quickly throw together badges without taking the time to properly design them. This is a big mistake and something that you have to avoid at all costs. Take your time, do the necessary research, and only then will you end up with results that you are very pleased with. Reach a seamless GEVME Onsite experience by using error-free name badge structure.
