Designs for science fair buttons

I've always been envious of graphic designers; their talents seem out-of-reach to me.  I have many skills of which I'm proud, but art and graphic design are not among them.  Is it just one of those left-brain-right-brain things, and my brain is not wired for art?  Or is it just that I haven't devoted sufficient time and effort to practice the skill?  I'm not sure, but I am hoping it's something I can get better at with time.  One nice thing about being the volunteer coordinator for the school science fair is that it gives me a chance to practice and improve my design skills in a low-risk environment.  (Low-risk because I doubt anyone would dare complain if my artwork wasn't up to their standards!)

At Cascade Ridge Elementary we give out buttons for all science fair participants, volunteers, and teachers to wear on the day of the science fair.  And rather than just buying a bunch of generic science fair buttons, I thought it would be more fun to get custom buttons made with our school's name and my own design.  For example, last year (2009), I created the following design for our buttons:

If you recognize the telescope, that's because I stole it from the clipart library in Microsoft Word.  Now, you might think that since I'm using pre-drawn clipart, there isn't much left to actually design.  But remember, this stuff doesn't come naturally to me.  So I agonized for hours over the background color, the font, the font color, the text, and the placement of the text.  Even the process of getting the design from my head into Photoshop Elements was a challenge, mostly because I find Photoshop to be complicated and confusing.  But in the end, I was pleased with the result.

For this year's science fair (2010), our logo is a magnet, and I couldn't find the exact right clipart or stock illustration for what I had in mind.  So I actually drew the magnet myself using a vector graphics tool called Microsoft Expression Design, which I find to be intuitive and easy to use.  My final button design looks like this:

It's not a masterpiece, but I kind of like its simplicity, and I hope the kids will like it too.  I just noticed that I've used a black background two years in a row ... there's something about black that makes it look classy to me.  I ordered our buttons today, so we'll see what they look like in about week when they arrive.

I buy our buttons from a company called WackyButtons.com, which is a simply outstanding service.  Stay tuned for a future blog post where I list all the things I love about them.

Leave me a comment on this blog if you have any thoughts or feedback.  And don't forget to get your own science fair website for your school at oursciencefair.com.

--Rajeev