Create a Coin Design for a Button Pin

by diy-day

Political button pins are integral rallying props in the pursuit of elected office. And long after a campaign for office is over, win or lose, these pieces of memorabilia remind one at a future date that one's candidate "gave it a shot."

But, you don't have to wait for your distinguished governor/senator to seek the Presidency to create a button pin that means something. Nor do you have to wait for the high school senior in your life to start marketing herself for Homecoming Queen.

If you just, say, really love your dog, that's reason enough to make this unique pinback button design that resembles the face of a minted coin.

(*Sigh* Look how shiny his coat is today...)

Materials you will need to create your button pin design

A few notes on the materials needed

I suggest you keep a copy of the coin you're trying to mimic beside you at all times while you're working on this project. Don't be shy about looking at the coin constantly.

Better yet, you should do a search on your favorite search engine for the image results of your preferred coin. Somewhere on the web there will be a highly-detailed mega-picture (greater than 1200 pixels in both width and height, for example) of the coin. The picture will give the coin much more detail than you could possibly see in your coin. (And besides, you can't afford to have coins just laying around the place in danger of getting lost. Not in this economy...)

Mind you, all of the steps in this button pin design process could probably be fulfilled within the most complete photo-editing application. But since Photoshop is not free, and some tasks are more easily accomplished in certain graphic programs versus others, three apps will be used in this tutorial.

At certain points in this tute, after accomplishing certain objectives, you will reach "Image Checkpoints." These are times when you should take a moment and click on the provided links to ensure that your work-in-progress image looks like or is reasonably close to the one being used to take you through this process. (Allowing for the different starting photo,  of course).

 

Let's make a coin button pin design already...

I want to emphazise that it's important to start with a good-quality photo. Of course, any will do, but the quality of the finished button graphic depends on the quality of the input picture. Also, I would recommend a profile pic of the individual to give it an authentic coin feel, since the typical circulating mint coin features a prominent figure in profile. But of course you can use any (good-quality) photo.

And also, though this seems obvious, try to choose a photo with very little or nothing going on in the background (around and behind the subject). You can make a preliminary assessment of the background clutter by bringing the photo into IRFANVIEW first and foremost before you do anything else with it. You're going to convert the photo to a grayscale and "Relief" it, thusly (note, it doesn't matter in which order you do these two tasks):

• Image (top menu) >> Convert to Grayscale
• Image >> Effects >> Effects browser >> Relief

You should have a nice etching of your subject in the foreground. But here's where you take note of any extraneous marks, lines, or images in the background that might be undesirable to the end button pin design. If you do find these extraneous marks, lines, or images, you can choose to lose the photo altogether, and select another. But if you do decide to stick with the picture, at least you're aware of its shortcomings.

Gimp Stage

Here in GIMP, you're going to create a nice fitting circle around the figure in your photo, and the circle's circumference will become the margin of your intended coin design. To that end,

1. Bring your vetted photo (the untouched original, without the grayscale or "Relief" effects) into GIMP: File (top menu) >> Open. (You might get a "Convert to RGB working space?" en-titled java prompt, especially if this is your first time working with GIMP. To tell you the truth, I don't know what difference selecting either the Convert button or Keep button makes...)

2. Grab the Ellipse Select Tool in the Toolbox section to your left (it's the 2nd icon from the top left).

3. Apply a circle to your photo. Make sure to create a nice size circle to accommodate all that you want to display of your subject; but, by the same token, see that your entire circle stays within the confines of the picture. Also, try to center the individual in the circle, remembering to leave space for wording on the circle's periphery.

You can adjust the circle's Size and Position parameters in the bottom half of the Toolbox. (the width and height Size numbers must be the same or else your shape is not a true circle.) You can also affect size and position by pulling on the edges of the circle, and holding down left-click while dragging the circle into position, respectively.

4. When Size and Position have been adjusted to your heart's content, Cut or Copy the circle with your subject in it: Right-click (or top menu) >> Edit.

5. File >> New. In the "Create a New Image" box, set the Width and Height to the same number - a number no less than 110% that of your circle. For example, a 400px circle demands at least a 440px new canvas size. Multiply your circle size by 1.10 and you'll have your new minimum canvas size.

You can leave the Template drop-down menu and the  Advanced Options alone for now (unless you really know what you're doing)...

6. Select a Background (BG) Color near the center of the Toolbox, by clicking the right-most color swatch of the two there: any color that contrasts with the predominant background color of your own cut circle photo is okay (if that contrasting color is white, you can skip this 6th step because the canvas is white). For example, if your background color is mostly white, black contrasts nicely. If your background color is mostly green, yellow will do.

Now click anywhere in the new workspace window, Edit >> Fill with BG Color

7. Edit >> Paste.

8. You might want to save this pasted image now in case something goes wrong in the next step (you should always make it a habit to save often). File >> Save Image As (anyname.jpg is fine). Choose Export in the "Export File" popup (which will come up if you did not click anywhere outside the circle you just pasted), and click Save in the next popup box after selecting your quality level.

Image Checkpoint 1

9. Click anywhere outside of your pasted circle to anchor it.

10. Now you're going to create a concentric ring around your circle to represent the edge of your button pin coin design. So choose the Ellipse Select Tool again, and create another circle around your present circle and make it hug the latter somewhat closely. Good Size parameters for this outer circle are numbers 5% greater than your inner circle (inner circle size X 1.05). Position this new ring such that the amount of space between both circles is about even all around.

11. Repeat steps # 4 through 8. In step #6, you can pick any canvas BG Color that differs from your previous BG Color selection, including (the original) white.

Time to leave the GIMP...

Image Checkpoint 2

Inkscape Stage

There are many graphic apps that allow you to apply text horizontally (really, just about all of them). But INKSCAPE is the only freeware that I'm familiar with that allows you to write in a circular fashion. In INKSCAPE, you're going to add all of the words on the coin, in one fell swoop. And the arcing text will be first...

After launching the the software:

1. File (top menu) >> Open, your last saved image.

2. Click on the lettering icon in the left-side tool menu (the "A"). Now create a box anywhere in the workspace by holding down left-click and dragging. The box should be long enough to accomodate your text.

3. I suggest you write only the first letter or character of the word/phrase you plan on arcing. That way,

(Note, if you can't see the lone character, its color is probably blending with whatever color is underneath it, e.g. the white of the workspace, the hue of your photo background, etc. Change the font color now, and later on also if you so choose, via the color palette near the bottom of the app.)

4. Now click on the "T" in the upper icon toolbar. In the "Text and Font" popup box, you can edit your text properties. Select your preferred Font family and Style. Whatever Font size you select, make a note of that number. Under Layout, you should pick the second option (with the "Center lines" mouseover title). When you go to the Text tab in the upper left, fill in the rest of your intended word/phrase. Anytime you hit the Apply button at the bottom, you should see the effects of your changes in the workspace. When satisfied with the look of your text, Close the box.

5. Choose the Sphere Tool (left-side tool menu, pink circle), and create a circle like you did in GIMP not too far from the text object you just created. Switch to the Select/Transform tool which is the topmost arrow icon in the left toolbar. You can adjust the width and height parameters (which will be the same, of course) of the new blank circle in the object toolbar just above the workspace. This new circle's dimensions will be roughly gotten with the following equation:

Dimension = Original-Inner-Circle-Size  -  (2 X Font-size)

E.g: Your first circle was 400px (in both width and height). If your Font-size is 24px, your new circle's dimension will be 352px.

You might want to make the size of the new circle slightly larger than the number you arrive at above. That way, the text will truly arc with the outer concentric ring. It's a bit of trial-and-error getting this new circle to be perfect, so I wouldn't recommend you try; but you can always return to this circle-making step if the words don't arc exactly the way you want. The above formula is simply to get you a very close approximation to a suitable circular shape...

6. You're going to select both the text object and the circle you just created at the same time by clicking on them in turn while holding the Shift key.

7. Text (top menu) >> Put on Path. The text should now be centered on the outside of the circle's left circumference (thanks to that 2nd option under Layout in the text property editor).

8. Hit the text object and rotate it 90 degrees clockwise: Object >> 90 degrees CW. Now just drag the text object into position at the top of your inner circle. If the space between your text and your outer ring isn't even or consistent no matter how well you position the text object, feel free to backtrack to the circle-making step (step 5) and follow through the tutorial again to this point.

FYI, anytime you're left-click dragging with the Select/Transform  tool enabled, you should always make sure you don't drag your imported jpg file by mistake.

9. When you are okay with your text alignment, hide the circle you created here in INKSCAPE. (Good God, you would never assume I meant the circle in your original artwork, would you?): select the circle, then Object  >> Object Properties. Check the Hide button at the bottom of the popup box.

10. Repeat steps 2-9 for more arcing text. Obviously, you will need to rotate any new text object a varying degree if you don't want it to superimpose the old text.

11. If you want to create plain old horizontal text, you only have to repeat steps 2-4 for each new word/phrase block. Once those steps are done you can switch to the arrow tool and drag each text block into position.

12. Remember, you can always return and click on any of the text objects to change its font color, if you feel that doing so sets it off better vis-a-vis the background.

13. Time for a final Save of your INKSCAPE file (you have been intermittently performing "Save As" an .svg file all along, right?).

14. Then export your artwork: File >> Export Bitmap. Here's where it becomes important that you did not move your original imported picture. If you indeed left it alone, just make sure the Drawing button is highlighted in the Export Area of  the "Export Bitmap" popup, browse to your preferred save folder and photo type, and hit the Export button.

Voila!

Image Checkpoint 3

So long, INKSCAPE. The next part is easy...

Irfanview stage (once again)

If you have a white or light-colored background, the first thing you might want to do back here in IRFANVIEW is "invert"  your image (Image >> Negative). The reason being - as you might have noticed before - lighter colors have a raised appearance in the final graphic, while darker  colors appear more depressed. And as you can see by looking at the coin you've had by your side all this time (hopefully), a background that's depressed relative to the other elements is a typical mint feature.

In case you were wondering, since you add the topographical effect, the color inversion isn't really going to matter that much to the final look of the design.

So Convert to Grayscale and add the "Relief" effect, like you did earlier in Irfanview when you were checking background suitability. Save your new coin button pin design, and...

...that's it. The creative process is done.

Image Checkpoint 4

Now all you have to do is,

1. resize your finished design to fit whatever-sized button you're going to insert it into
2. print it
3. cut it out along the outer circle (using scissors is okay; using a circle cutter is even better and easier.)
4. then add the design to a button pinback using a Tecre Round Button Machine, a Badge-a-Matic buttonmaker, or a simple Badge-a-Minit Hand Press Kit.

You can also place your coin button graphic in custom keychains, button magnets, button mirrors, etc.

(Come here, Gulliver. Check out this button pin I made in your honor...Now why are you barking at me?)

About the Author: diy-day maintains a kids DIY arts & crafts video site.