Button (badge)
As Button ( English for button ) usually round Ansteckplaketten sheet metal or plastic are called. These are often attached to clothing with a safety or bow pin. However, there are also buttons with magnets and ear stud fasteners. Other fastening options for buttons include the crocodile clip, the suction cup or the butterfly clasp.
Buttons are used in a variety of ways and brought to the user in different ways - for example distributed at demonstrations or sold at pop concerts. The only limits to the design are shape and size. Buttons come in many different sizes and shapes. Round (common formats: 25, 31, 37, 50, 56, 75 mm) or square buttons (e.g. in the format 52 × 52 or 68 × 44 mm) are very popular.
Manufacturing
Buttons can be produced by machine in large numbers, but also in small numbers on simple handheld devices. Four circular parts - a metal front part, the design (mostly on paper), a transparent protective film and the metal back with the needle - are placed on top of one another and pressed together. Machine-made buttons are often available in a glossy or matte finish. In addition to these multi-layer buttons, there are tin buttons with a directly printed surface.
Hand presses are popular at children's parties and youth groups. Motifs can be painted and drawn yourself. Cut or punched round, they are individually pressed as buttons.
Motifs
The spectrum of content is vast: pictorial symbols, brief political statements, portraits of rock stars and footballers, aphorisms and pure nonsense. When buttons are worn openly on clothing, as is usual, they act as a medium, they convey the views, likes and dislikes of their wearer to the public. However, this presupposes a certain consistency in the personal repertoire of the signs on the part of the recipient of the message.
A well-known example of such an opinion button is the red sun with the text “Atomkraft? No thanks". The motif was developed in 1975 by the citizens' initiative OOA in Aarhus , Denmark and has since spread in more than 40 languages with an estimated total of 20 to 30 million.
The history of buttons was also written in Germany. Here, too, there were political buttons with cult status. In the federal election in 1972, for example, the SPD badges with the inscription "Choose Willy" were very widespread. This button differs slightly from the classic version and was a printed plastic disc with a needle on the back.
See also
Web links
- Examples of opinion buttons on the website of the German Historical Museum