Cool conference badges

Whether it's an international event, or a small intimate affair, organising a conference requires a lot of forward planning – including making sure everyone has a name badge.

And when it comes to innovating badges, Madrid-based conference organiser Gianfranco Chicco is thinking outside the box, using his creative flair (and MOO Postcards!) to make great looking name tags for all his events.

Here's Gianfranco’s guide to making the ultimate conference badge.

Get crafty

Postcards are A6 size - the exact same dimensions as conventional conference badges. They're perfect for badges because you can fit a lot of information on them.

Design your badges the way you want them, and put whatever information you need on the back, like the conference agenda, lecture times, or sponsor ads.

To hang them, you can either punch two holes into the postcard for double hooked lanyards (so that the badge doesn't flip over and the attendee's name is always visible) or one central hole for regular lanyards.

Make it personal

If you're organising a conference, you can use Printfinity to design the front of your badges to match the different categories that your attendees fall into – for example, colour coding to distinguish between regular guests, VIPs, speakers, staff or press.

Another way to personalise your postcard badges is clever use of MOO Stickers! You can print any design or picture you like, and make each badge a conversation starter, like Gianfranco did at a recent event, using little yellow typewriter stickers to signify a member of the press.

Keep it green

To protect the environment, do without the plastic sleeve most conference badges come in – nobody is going to be swimming with them, so why use extra packaging?

Who is it for?

Small to medium sized conference organisers who are expecting between 100 to 400 attendees, and don't want to spend a lot of money on a bulk order for customised badges they'll never use again. This could be anything from a formal business conference to a corporate social event, casual networking evenings, company gatherings or even large dating evenings.

Gianfranco Chicco is a marketing specialist and conference organiser who has worked all over the world. He is currently working with La Red Innova, a Latin America-focused tech conference, and runs Conference Basics, a forum for the international events organisation industry.

Looking for other ways to make your mark at a business conference? Why not make some customised "We met at…." Business Cards to hand out to new contacts?

---