How many times have you walked through an antique store and perused the vintage political campaign buttons or looked through a bin of old event buttons at a yard sale? Heck, how many of us have found old buttons supporting sports teams or marking a community event amongst our parent’s or grandparent’s belongings? This is why I button.
Buttons are an affordable way to celebrate an event or mark an occasion and they have the added benefit of holding up very well over time. If someone buys a game program at a ball game the odds are not good for those paper pages to even survive the entire game. When we get a political mailer it might go on the fridge for the campaign cycle before being recycled. Buttons, on the other hand, are durable and stand the test of time.
When I’m pressing buttons for the Kansas Ethnic Enrichment Festival I imagine them being saved by the attendee and looked back on with a sense of nostalgia years from now. I look at the political campaign buttons we create and can’t help but imagine them making their way into an antique booth in thirty years on their way to someone’s personal collection of political ephemera.
I guess I just like the fact that buttons survive and that’s why I button.
Meadowlark Graphics 