How to Customize Police Badges
- 1). Poll the community leaders of your town in order to ascertain the single most symbolic representation of your community. Perhaps the town seal has become a closely associated symbol of your town over the years. Or, maybe a building such as city hall or a local historical structure is the first object members of the community think of when asked to designated a single object that best represents your town.
- 2). Using this input, design a series of draft badge designs. Incorporate the various symbols preferred by your community leaders into these designs. When drafting your mock-ups, you will want to pay special attention to how your design will apply to the base badge designs that most law enforcement supply companies use (see Reference 2). Unless your department has access to a large budget, it will probably not be feasible to design a badge which is custom shaped.
- 3). Conduct a survey of the officers in order to receive their support for the development of the new departmental badge. After all, it will be the department officers who will be wearing the badge, and having their buy-in and support for the new design will better enable them to take pride in their uniform.
- 4). Provide a copy of your selected design to a law enforcement supply company which specializes in the creation of customized badges, such as Badgesource.com. A basic Internet search for these companies should allow access to a number of law enforcement supply specialists. Ensure that your department makes a wise purchase by conducting a thorough comparison of prices and product quality.
- 5). Use the design in other venues, such as for the department log, uniform side patches, and letterhead. This design will provide positive representation of your community to other law enforcement agencies and hobbyists who collect patches from police departments.
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