Make a Quick and Easy Pin Button in Inkscape

How to Use the Free Vector Drawing Software to Produce a Lapel Badge

Jul 25, 2009 Ian Pullen

Inkscape can be used to produce effective pin button or lapel badge style graphics that can be applied to designs to add greater interest or to flag important points.

Inkscape is a free and open source vector line illustration application that Graphic Designers can use to produce scalable graphics. While lacking the full on power of Adobe Illustrator, the industry standard illustration software, Inkscape is a well rounded and full featured piece of software and it can be used to produce effective visual effects.

Pin button or lapel badge graphics can be a useful graphic device in many circumstances, to highlight important points and draw attention to specific pieces of information. This is a quick and easy Graphic Design school type tutorial to help Designers learn some aspects of Inkscape and finesse their eye for detail.

Getting Started

The first step is to select the Ellipse tool and, while holding the Ctrl button (this helps to constrain the proportions to keep a perfect circle), draw a circle on the page. This is then colored – in this example a bright yellow is selected from the color palette to the bottom of the window.

To give the effect of a slight bevel around the edge of the button, a circular gradient is applied. Clicking on the yellow fill swatch below and to the left of the palette opens the fill manager dialog and then the Radial gradient is selected.

Clicking edit opens the Gradient manager (if the HSL tab isn't selected, click on it) and an extra stop needs to be added by clicking the Add stop button. The Offset slider setting of this new intermediate step is moved to the right, to about 90%. The Alpha opacity is also moved fully to the right, to 255.

Next the bottom Stop is selected from the drop down list in the Gradient editor and the Alpha channel is moved to 255. The L (lightness) channel slider is moved slightly to the left to produce a slightly darker bevelled edge around the circle.

Add a Design and Highlight

Any type of design can now be placed on the pin button, but some simple text has been added in this demonstration and it has been scaled and slightly rotated to add interest.

At this stage the effect looks a little flat, so a highlight layer is added over the top by drawing a new circle that is slightly smaller than the lapel badge and this is colored white. The gradient tool is then used to draw an angled gradient over the white circle to convert it into a blend.

Add a Drop Shadow

The final step adds a real finishing touch by adding some depth to the graphic. The easiest way to do this is to copy and paste the background of the badge and change the color to a grey.

This is placed to the back by using the Object menu and selecting Lower to Bottom. It is then placed with a little bit of an offset from the pin button graphic. It could be left like this, but this is a little harsh, so a blur is added to make it appear more like a natural shadow.

With the shadow circle selected, the Blur slider that appears to the bottom of the Fill and Stroke manager is slid slightly to the right, about 5%.

That's it! This quick and easy Graphic Design school type tutorial produces a pin button graphic that can be adapted and used in a wide range of different ways.

The copyright of the article Make a Quick and Easy Pin Button in Inkscape in Graphic Design is owned by Ian Pullen. Permission to republish Make a Quick and Easy Pin Button in Inkscape in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

This Graphic Design School Tutorial Uses Inkscape	A Circle is Filled With Solid Color	A Radial Gradient Adds a Bevel
A Highlight Layer is Added	A Drop Shadow Finishes the Piece