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Best Boy Patch: A Junior Illustration Project by August Hattiangadi (2021)

I dedicated my illustration project to my friend, who’s a Boy Scout. It’s created in the dimensions of a Boy Scouts merit badge in order to fit in with all the other merit badges on his sash. He’s working on his Eagle project, so I thought I’d give him a little motivation. The idea was for the patch to emulate what a catboy achievement might look like.

For the design portion, I used the official Boy Scouts of America brand guide as of July 2019. It turns out that they’re incredibly attached to their style, which I can appreciate as a designer. In addition to their ridiculous possessiveness of Scouting Red, The Boy Scouts of America offer comprehensive color schemes for each brand of scout, ie. Sea Scouts versus Cub Scouts, and other gems, such as the recommended angle for diagonal overlays (72 degrees, the angle of a Boy Scout pocket). I used Scouting Tan, Scouting Warm Gray, and Scouting Dark Gray.

However, for the physical production, I ran into some problems. For one thing, I was limited to the colors of thread that were available and compatible with the embroidery machine. This was easy enough to overcome; I simply estimated which thread color was closest. You may also notice that, while the font in the original design was sans serif, the final patch is serif. I chose the closest .25 inch font available for the machine and realized that serif would be easier to read in person. For some reason, the inner pink part of the ear appears to be printed over the outer ear portion of the left, but I was reassured that this is an almost imperceptible error. I figure the final product does the job for a gag gift. Related website
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