Back in 02024Q3 we planned on releasing custom badges for our newsletter subscribers. These were to be dynamic images that changed over time based on subscription length and other special inventory items.
Did we mention we have a newsletter? You can subscribe here: https://optional.is/newsletter/subscribe
If you want your own personalized badge you need to be a subscriber!
The badge needed to grow over time to include more and more items the longer you were a subscriber. We wanted it to both be Icelandic but also heraldic.
As part of the mock-ups and design, we had the banner which in heraldry holds some sort of motto. We repurposed it as the year you subscribed. Later we changed that to be a sort of mini-inventory of special achievements.
Currently, we have two achievements: Material Conference supporter and Alumni/Co-Worker.
Back in 02016 we planned to have our first Material Conference. We tried to kickstart it, but the campaign didn’t get enough backers. We subsequently had an event in 02017, 02018 and we planned for 02020 but it was cancelled. If you attended, backed, or spoke at any of these four events you get an M on your badge. We have everyone’s email, but matching them to subscribers in the database is hit-or-miss, so if you think you should have this achievement, but don’t, let us know.
The other is a small star for alumni/co-worker. We’re taking a very broad definition of alumni/co-worker. Obviously, we worked at the same company or you paid us or we paid you, it’s pretty clean-cut. Other situations include volunteer projects, open source projects or one-off special events. We considered those (as we remember them) in this definition too. If you think you should have a star, remind us why and we’ll add it.
Over time we’ll add more achievements as we can think of them or justify their existence. They shouldn’t be impossible, but also shouldn’t be simple either. The achievement designs are unlikely to evolve over time or be affected by your subscription date.
To keep the badges changing everything without re-inventing the entire design, we settled on a five-year cycle. Every fifth year, you get some upgrade. In year one, you start with a basalt column. For the next four years, one start is added. On your 6th year, you get the banner and the stars reset. The four following years are stars again, then on the 11th year you get the supporters. We reset the stars every 5 years and then count-up again. On the 16th year the supporters change color, on the 21st year the basalt column changes colors. Luckily, no one has been subscribed for more than 16 years. So we have 10 more years to figure-out what happens next and if this is worth continuing.
You can visit the newsletter badge website now to check what each year looks like as well as paste-in your email address to see your current badge, or sign-up to start. The link to your custom badge is pretty simple. It is a dynamic SVG that take your email address as a query parameter. We’ll use this in the footer of future email newsletter templates. Even if you revisit older saved newsletters, the image will be reloaded and show you the most current design.