moon.horse

how to make a badge

september 3rd, 2025

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materials:

cardstock

• - i used 230gsm 85lb paper, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJX2153R

lanyard

• - you can source one by saying yours broke at a con, or just buy some yourself

hole poker

• - i used a knife, it was super goofy, ideally get a hole puncher or an exacto knife.

glue / double sided tape

• - i was VERY impressed with double sided tape it was like magic (https://www.amazon.com/Secopad-Scrapbook-Double-Scrapbooking-Supplies/dp/B0CHTZD63Q)

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how i made my badge for DEFCON

prepare your badge for printing by going into your image editing software of choice (I used GIMP), and I created a new empty image with the dimensions of U.S. Letter (A4 if you're not in the U.S.)

plop your badge image in and size it to the size that you want, it will be proportionate to a sheet of paper.

save that as a PNG / JPG / whatever, also keep the source in case you need to edit it IMO, this came up for me.

go into Kinkos / Fedex / Staples, they have unmanned / supervised printing machine.

you can buy / load in your paper there, you can also ask for them to load it for you.

you can usually send that PNG by email, or transfer it to them via flashdrive, both are good methods but email is a bit slower in my experience.

once you print that onto your cardstock / paper of choice, they usually have laminators / a lamination service.

post lamination you can either cut it into a square with their biiiig alignment / cutting stations, or you can go in with an exacto knife to do it yourself.

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todo

• - talk about badge duplication strategies
• - how to print and paste together a front and back