One of my ideas for the Survival kit was to design and paint some fabric patches in the style of Boy Scout achievement badges, but of course on-theme with modern grown-up achievements, e.g. “Advanced Small Talk”.

It’s one of the things I’m using to sew on and decorate the white backpack that will eventually hold my survival kit. This will fulfill the area of the brief that states it would be best if the student had some contribution to the container (rather than just, say, buying one and using it as is).

Picking colours was quite difficult for this, since scout badges are quite busy and often have garish colours so text stands out. I think the one I’m most proud of is Junior Assistant Real Adult because of the strong shapes (triangles and hard edged squares) and contrast in colours. I might have done better using a lighter colour on the Small Talk badge in retrospect, since it ended up quite a dark badge. But pastels can also look sickly so even that might not have worked.

Just as an aside, I think the uni might be pleased that I’m upcycling some old charity shop jeans to make these badges. They’re on a very heavy sustainability kick and it’s a good coincidence it’s showing in my work!

I would say that the next step for me in the project would be to create some more item cards that correspond to the items in the kit, e.g. Teapot, Music, etc. This is also required in the brief as somehow listing or drawing your items, so before I go on another design tangent I think it’d be in my best interests to hit the brief first.