As an event coordinator, it’s your job to bring people together and to give them the tools to communicate with one another. Give them the opportunity to forge new relationships and be more successful than they already are. This isn’t always an easy task, but accomplishing it makes you look really good, and it makes finding future work very easy. One of the key methods to getting all of this right is to create high-quality name badges for everyone at your events. This seems like such a minor detail in the big picture of event planning, but it’s actually a very big deal and something to take seriously. Here’s an overview of how to create a quality name badge. These do’s and don’ts will help you achieve results that will improve your success.
Key Factors of a Successful Name Badge
There are a few factors that make up the most successful name badges. These are the key elements that you really want to focus on when designing a new badge yourself, and they are the important points that you want to stress even if someone else is doing the designing for you. Keep each of these three things in mind, and you’ll be in good shape.
Readability
Name badges or event tags must be readable. If attendees cannot read the tags of one another, they aren’t going to connect nearly as often. They won’t be able to call the person by his or her name, and they won’t have any of that information to give them a reason to connect. It’s important to use large enough lettering so that the tags are readable from many feet away. That’s one of the biggest parts of a successful name badge.
Sturdiness
If you’ve ever been to an event where your conference badges just fell apart and you were left without a name for people to read, you know how awkward it can be. That’s one of the reasons that you want to create high-quality badges. Invest in sturdy materials like thick card stock, a more durable neck strap and a nice sturdy plastic holder for your tags. The investment will result in more effective tags that hold up throughout the event. Spending a bit more here makes you look like a more professional company as well. It’s a small gesture that everyone will appreciate.
Usefulness
Now that you know some of the design elements of the name badge, it’s time to focus on whether or not it’s actually going to be useful for your attendees. A good name badge has useful information that attendees will want to use, such as:
- Names
- Job titles
- Company titles
- Contact details
- Other pertinent details
When deciding on what information to add on conference badges, you have to be careful to avoid including too much or too little. Too much information makes everything hard to read, and too little prevents it from being useful at all. Work hard to get just the right balance for a successful tag in the future.
Name Badge Design Mistakes to Watch out For
There’s a lot that you can do right when designing a name tag, but there’s also plenty of ways to mess up good event tags. If you want to create truly effective event badges, ensure that you aren’t making any of the following mistakes. Some aren’t immediately obvious either.
Clutter
Clutter will kill otherwise great conference tags. It does two things:
- It makes it hard to read everything that’s written on the tag.
- It devalues the information that you are putting on display. How important can the information be after all, if it’s being shown with so much other information?
Small Font
As with clutter, choosing a font that’s too small renders a name tag nearly useless. If the words are hard to read from six feet away, you need to go with a larger font. Do yourself a favor and upsize that font to something that people will be able to read comfortably without standing too close to one another.
Bland Styling
High-quality name tags should have a professional look to them, but that doesn’t mean they have to be dull either. It’s important to infuse a bit of style – and even flare – into your name tags. More people will wear the tags, and pay attention to them if you use bold fonts, exciting patterns, and other small flourishes to spice up the overall look.
Lack of Information
While it’s easy to put together tags with just a name and job title, that’s often not enough information. Really think about the details that people will want to share, and what they will want to know about one another before you decide what information will be included – and what will not. You don’t want to add too much information, but it’s just as bad to keep the badges too bare as well. Try and find a happy medium to get the best possible results from your tags.
Too Many Colors
Adding colors to your name badges is a cool way to set them apart and to really emphasize important data on the tags – but it’s only good when used in moderation. Don’t make the mistake of using many different colors and making them too colorful. This will make the badge more difficult to read and will take away all benefits of using colors on the tag.
How to Design a Successful Name Tag
Now that you know a bit about what you should have on effective conference badges – and what you shouldn’t include – it’s time to go over how to actually design the thing so that it ends up being high quality.
Consider the Font
Pick out multiple fonts that you like, match them to the sizes of the great conference tags that you will use, and print them out. Try reading the printed words closely and from afar. Print the same words on multiple lines, using different fonts that you are considering. Once they are side-by-side, it will be much easier to decide on the one that is easiest to read, and also the nicest looking.
To Color or Not to Color?
Color should be applied sparingly if you decide to use it at all. Consider which information is the most important on your high-quality name tags, and only add color to those bits. Make sure that you consider black and white, and color variations of the badges before you decide on the one that you like best. Always give yourself multiple options to choose from, or you’ll end up with subpar results.
Design the Lanyard with Care
The lanyard or necklace of the effective conference badges must be chosen with care. It needs to be comfortable, the right length and effective at keeping the badges visible. Choose a length that will keep badges at around chest height on most people that wear it. Pick out an option that has two connection points, and make sure that it’s somewhat comfortable. The neck piece needs to feel good when worn, or most people will just remove it. It’s not too difficult to pick out a good quality holder for the badge, but you would be surprised at how many people never give it a thought at all.
Invest in Quality Materials
Choose a mid to high-range option when it comes to tag materials. It’s probably enjoyable to think about all the money that you will save with the cheapest material options presented to you, but trust me, it’s not worth it. Instead, touch all of the different materials, consider how durable they are, and finally, pick the ones that you like the best overall. Try to leave price out of the decision process so that you can get something that’s true of high quality. Tags that you like will probably also be liked by everyone else.
Get a Second and Third Opinion
Before you make the final decision, ask if you can have a few example badges made of the different options that you like the best. Now, show them to several people at your company, business professionals that you know and anyone else that will take a look at them. Show it off so that you can find out which style is the best out of them all. Hopefully, the people will confirm what you already know, but if they don’t and they consistently like a different option better, strongly consider making a switch to make them happy.
Designing effective conference badges isn’t hard, but it’s not something that you should rush through either. Work hard to come up with an option that people will be happy with. That’s the best way to achieve top results from your badges, even if that means spending a bit more time and money on the badges. Start creating flawless name badge designs for seamless GEVME Onsite process.
