Custom Pin-Back Buttons for Farmingdale, New York

WHAT THE GIVEAWAY IS ACTUALLY DOING

A charity walk committee is usually working from a sign up sheet that keeps growing, a sponsor who wants their logo seen, and a giveaway that has to go to every single person who shows up on the morning. Pin-back buttons get picked for that job often, because one piece of artwork covers the entire group and the final count can be fixed late, once registrations settle down. Everything below is written for the people putting that kind of order together in Farmingdale.

A fundraiser button does three jobs at once. It marks who has registered, so whoever is running the table can see who is in. It carries the name of the cause, the part that ends up in every photograph taken that day. And it gives a sponsor somewhere to sit that is not another banner on a fence.

Usually one design covers everybody, though some committees want a second version for volunteers or team captains. Printing is full colour, so you are not designing around a restricted palette. A logo with a gradient in it, a photograph of the person the walk is named for, a ribbon in one specific shade: all of that prints as supplied.

THREE NAMES SHARING A ROOT, AND WHAT THAT DOES TO AN ORDER

Farmingdale, South Farmingdale and East Farmingdale are three separate names on the list of places covered here, and they sit very close to one another. The southern one is 1.1 miles away and the eastern one is 1.5 miles away. Plainedge and Old Bethpage are each 1.8 miles out, and North Massapequa is 2.6 miles. All of it sits in Nassau County.

For a walk committee that is close enough that members are often spread across more than one of those names without anybody having thought about it. The practical consequence is small but real: match the ZIP code to the address, not to the name you have in your head. The town itself uses 11735. If a committee member gives you a street in one of the neighbouring names, take their ZIP from them rather than assuming it matches yours.

The town sits 10.6 miles south of the shop, measured as a straight line rather than as a route.

PICKING A SIZE FOR A WALK GIVEAWAY

There are five sizes and nothing else.

The 1.5 inch is $1.89 each. It is the smallest, and it suits a short word mark, a set of initials or a single symbol. Small type stops being readable at that scale, so keep the copy down to a few words.

The 2.25 inch is $1.99 each. It is the middle size and the one most walk designs end up on, because there is room for a cause name with a line of text under it, or a logo with a year beside it.

The 3 inch is $2.49 each. It is the largest, with space for a logo, a line of text and a sponsor mark without any of the three crowding the others.

A hundred of a size earns 20 percent, and the saving applies to all hundred. Ten and a thousand of one size are not the same rate any more: ten pays the listed rate, and a thousand of a single size is where a quote takes over from an automatic price. Three thresholds unlock a lower rate, so set your count by how many people you expect and then check whether a single size is sitting just below 100, 250 or 500.

WHAT A RUN OF 251 COMES TO

Take the largest size as a worked example. 251 buttons of the 3 inch at $1.87 each, 25 percent under the 1 to 99 figure, is $469.37 in buttons. Flat shipping on an order of that size is $19.99. The order comes to $489.36 before tax.

That arithmetic is the whole of it. Quantity times the unit price for the size, plus one shipping figure.

WHERE YOUR COUNT LANDS ON THE SHIPPING TABLE

Shipping is a flat charge set by the total number of buttons on the order:

• up to 100 buttons, $9.99
• up to 250 buttons, $14.99
• up to 500 buttons, $19.99
• up to 1000 buttons, $24.99

The tier counts every button on the order, not the buttons of one size. So the 251 in the example above sits one single button over a boundary. Ordering 250 instead would hold the order inside the $14.99 tier and save $5.00 on postage.

Whether that is worth doing is a judgement call. For a walk with a headcount that is still moving, one spare button may be worth more to you than five dollars. The point is to make the call knowingly rather than discover it afterwards.

PREPARING ONE FILE FOR THE WHOLE GROUP

The button is round, so design round. Square layouts lose their corners. Keep anything you need read, the cause name, the year, the sponsor, in from the edge, because the printed area curves over the rim and the outer band of your artwork goes with it.

Send artwork at the size you want it printed or larger. If you are running two versions, one for walkers and one for volunteers, put both files on the same order. The artwork makes no difference to the count, but the size does: only matching sizes add up.

FOUR COMMITTEES, FOUR DIFFERENT PROBLEMS

If your headcount will not settle. Pick the number you can defend to your treasurer, then decide separately whether you want spares. Because the rate for each size and each count is published, spares cost exactly the unit price each. The only thing to watch is whether they push you across a shipping tier.

If you are a local chapter of a national charity. The parent organisation has usually supplied artwork you are not allowed to alter, and full colour printing means you do not have to. Send their file as they gave it to you and put your own event line, if you are allowed one, in the space they left for it.

If a board has to approve the spend first. The per button rate for your count makes the number you take to that meeting the number you actually pay. Quantity times unit price, plus the one shipping figure for your tier, plus tax. There is no later adjustment because a quantity landed in a different bracket.

If you run the same walk every year. Decide early whether the year goes on the face of the button. Leaving it off means one file you reuse. Putting it on means a small edit each time. Either is fine, but the choice is easier now than after the first run.

QUESTIONS COMMITTEES ASK BEFORE THEY ORDER

Our Farmingdale walk has 251 people registered. Is there a reason to order 250 instead? Only the postage. 251 buttons puts the order in the $19.99 shipping tier. Dropping to 250 holds it in the $14.99 tier and saves $5.00. The rate for a given size and count is fixed and public, so it is purely a question of whether you want the extra one in the box.

Can a Farmingdale group put two different designs on the same order? Yes. Send both files, tell us how many of each. The price per button is unchanged by having two designs, and the shipping tier is worked out from the combined total of both.

Does a bigger order bring the price per button down for a Farmingdale fundraiser? It does, in three steps. 100 of one size takes 20 percent off, 250 takes 25 percent and 500 takes 30 percent, and the count is taken per size rather than across the order. The figure listed is what 1 to 99 of that size costs each. $1.49, $1.69, $1.89, $1.99 and $2.49 for the five sizes are the prices across the whole 1 to 99 band. Quantity moves two figures, and the two are counted differently: the rate per size, the shipping across every size. A 1 inch is $1.49, a 1.25 inch is $1.69, and both are worth a look if the design is one word or one symbol.

We are a Farmingdale committee working to a fixed budget. How do we work the total out before we commit? Multiply your quantity by the price for the size you want, then add the single shipping figure for the tier your total button count falls into. Using the worked example: 251 of the 3 inch at $1.87 is $469.37, plus $19.99 shipping, is $489.36 before tax.

Half our Farmingdale committee lives under a neighbouring address. Whose should we ship to? Whichever single person is going to take delivery and hold the box until the event. Use the ZIP that belongs to that exact address. If it is the town itself, that is 11735. If it is one of the neighbouring names, ask them for theirs rather than copying yours across.