I have button making equipment and supplies for Green and progressive campaigns in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you would like some buttons, bring printed inserts to the Green Party headquarters, at 1028A Howard Street, and you can operate the presses yourself. I ask that campaigns reimburse me for the parts at the rates below. If you need a graphic artist, contact me and I might be able to find one for you.
The 1 inch button press and graphic punch produce very small buttons appropriate for the lapel of a nice suit. They can be made into earrings and tie tacks as well. They cost 10 cents each. Download this template file for Adobe Illustrator and add your own art: Template-100 |
We made more than 20,000 of these 2¼ inch buttons during Matt Gonzalez' campaign. Bridget, Amy & Ron achieved our best rate of 250 buttons per hour using this type of press. These buttons cost 15 cents each. Download the 2¼ template file for Illustrator and add your own art: Template-225 |
I also have both 3 inch and 3½ inch button presses. These buttons are very large (readable on TV?) and have room for a photo and plenty of information. Unfortunately, the button parts for both are expensive (30 cents each), the largest machine is old and temperamental. The templates for these buttons are here: Template-300, Template-350, but talk to me before preparing art for these presses. |
Each template shows several areas on the button:
1) Legible area | Flat face, meaningful information should be inside this circle |
2) Front bevel | Outer edge of pressed button, art is visible but curled |
3) Back bevel | Visible when viewing button from the back |
4) Cutting guides | Dotted lines show where to cut the paper |
5) Ink saver | A circular mask overlay to clip graphics that will be invisible on the final result |
In Illustrator vector format, each is a separate layer in the file. When you print, make sure page scaling or “Shrink to Fit” is turned off.