CONvergence Badge Art: #CVG2009
I’m counting down to CONvergence 2012 on July 5-8 this year, and sharing some highlights from past year’s badge art that I’ve done for the convention.
The CONvergence 2009 theme was Comedy – a celebration the funny side of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. This was more challenging art-wise than I would have imagined going in. When you’re usually trying to do a funny take on something series, it’s hard to then do a funny take on something that was already funny. The really funny thing that happened in 2009 was that our 1-time deal of CONvergence being a Thursday-Sunday 4-day event for our Year 10 convention in 2008 became permanent. You can never please everyone and certainly some folks preferred the 3-day model, but a TON of people really loved the extra day of con in 2008, and we made the counter-intuitive discovery that for a lot of volunteers four days was EASIER. We had a TON more at-the-con volunteers in 2008, and our Convention Committee was more relaxed. My theory – people find it easier to spare some of their time for volunteering when their hours at con seem like less of a premium. And for those working all weekend, more time between Move-In and Move-Out improves the ratio of hard work vs. time spent enjoying the convention.
PROOF that I’ve long been trying to feature the work of artists other than myself at CONvergence! This year the decision was made to further break out the age ranges for badging purposes, which resulted in an extra badge. The three youngest brackets this year featured artwork by Holly Spotts, which I then composited into the badge design. If the badges look a little blank, it’s because the CONvergence logo was being applied that year in the form of a hologram sticker as an anti-counterfitting measure.
Here’s the Adult Badge – featuring Connie in Groucho glasses. It was the best iconic image I could think of for CONvergence and comedy!
The Exec Badge features more artwork not by me – this one has artwork by Lou Frank, which I then incorporated into a badge design.
The ConCom Badge and Director Badges this year featured artwork by me, re-purposed from T-shirt art I had done.
The Service Animal Badge started with Connie/dog art by Lou Frank, and I added the fire hydrant in making a badge design out of it.
I had drawn our mascots as the Addams Family and The Munsters for 2009 Publications, so tycoon Gomez with Morticia seemed like a nice choice for the Finance Badge.
And it’s not badge art per-se, but this year was the debut of our Badger Patch, an embroidered patch given to volunteers who spend time doing the vital job of manning badging stations at the convention.
And finally, the 2009 Temp Badges. We’d had some issues with the performers being issued Temp Badges returning them, so this year we had a variant for each day of the convention, so they would “expire” at the end of a day.
If you’re coming to #CVG2012 be sure to look me up! I’ll be doing two signings and on a bunch of panels.