A Plea to Conventions About Name Badges

[jimhines]

I have a favor to ask of conventions: please design your badges so that names can be easily and clearly read.

I’ve never been good with names. It’s frustrating as hell, and it’s become a bigger problem as I travel to more conventions. I get introduced to so many people, and within 24 hours, a lot of those names escape my brain like Batman villains from Arkham Asylum.

Most of the time, it’s not that I forget the people — just the names. (Sorry, Darla!) Especially if it’s been a while (folks I see once a year at a given convention, for example) or the context is different. Even when my brain retains a tentative grasp on a name, I tend to not trust myself, and still try to check badges to make sure.

Compare these two badges. The one on the left is from Convergence. The one on the right I made up as an example, but it’s pretty close to some I’ve seen at various conventions.

Convergence’s badge is relatively easy to read, with clear black text on white. Even my old eyes should be able to read that at a distance. Whereas the other example uses small type in a non-standard font, and is hard to distinguish from the background.

(This will also give me a better chance of spelling your name correctly if I’m signing a book!)

I know folks like cool artwork on the badges. I know a lot of people are better at remembering names than I am. But please take pity on those of us with older eyes and leaky brains.

Thank you,

Jim and the Society of People Who Suck at Remembering Names

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Amen!

To the SMOFs reading: 30pt bold, black on white or buff.

[oreouk]

Absolutely! Readability in con badges should trump coolness every time. I have the same problem with names at work as I'm the company's librarian so when people pitch up at my desk they know my name already and greet me by name. The odds of me remembering theirs is severely limited, even people I've 'known' for years. Would only we wore name badges at work! Nowadays we even use Skype instead of phones, so I can no longer ask people for their extensions so I can get back to them later and then go look them up in the directory (also almost extinct). Sigh!

[soc_puppet]

+1

And I'll throw in an extra request for sans-serif fonts and not-all-caps*, since those are typically easier for people with dyslexia to read.


* I mean, not all caps by default. There are definitely people who fill out their reg forms with their badge names in all caps, and those are fine in small numbers, but as a general thing, standard capitalization is the way to go.

[alchemise]

Although honestly I thought the name for the one on the left was Meat Baby as that stood out the most and I'm not familiar with that con.

[legionseagle]

Agreed 100% about the lettering size etc

If we're talking about rational design for badges, can I also put in a plea for a plurality of ways of attaching the badge to its holder? I mean, lanyard round the neck works for me, but I'm in my fifties and don't particularly expect trouble these days. When I was younger I always preferred pinned (with safety pin) to top in about the region of the left collarbone, to avoid the plausible deniable eye travelling down cleavage effect which lanyards can produce. And a pin and clip, because ones with just a clip are useless for most women's tops which don't normally have jacket lapels.

[autopope]

You can remember people AT ALL?!?!?

I'm mostly face-blind these days, and have presbyopia and happy fun eye issues, and a memory as porous as a sieve. Upshot is that, in the absence of notable distinguishing features, I will often recognize someone's face by the third or fourth time I meet them at a con, but may never manage to put a name to it.

Also? Reading names on badges usually requires squinting. Which comes with additional social anxiety if, as a middle-aged male, I'm trying to jog my memory of the name of a female fan or pro I'm interacting with — because nobody ever pins a big, readable name badge on their shoulder, right?

[kyrielle]

Yes, all of this! And, as the one on the left shows, you can have cool artwork _and_ a readable space.

[mbernardi]

Also it’s very cool if the name is on BOTH sides of the badge. Lanyards tend to flip badges over so 40% of the time are no use any way! Loncon 3 did this, while Workdcon 75 had a smaller font and a bunch of phone numbers on the back.