The Making of the Guitar Pin

Since I have made pins in the past, I decided to make a unique pin for the 2022 cruise, as the Flower Power Cruises for 2020 and 2021 were postponed, due to Covid and a needed upbeat item was needed to lift spirits.

I first get an idea - usually hand drawn on a cocktail napkin with thoughts from our Flower Power Cruise Chat friends.

My "go-to" product for pin and button design is Inkscape.  This is a vector-based graphics progam (which is free).  I also have the Adobe Creative suite but Inkscape is easier.

This is my first drawing of a Rickenbacker 12 string (Thank you Jimmy Aschenbener of The Outsiders for the idea) of using a Rickenbacker 12 string.

It's pretty raw but I put in the strings and panels.  Next I added text and port names.

I then wanted the blue flower to be yellow for better contrast.  Also, since Covid is very fluid on changing itineraries, I took off the ports and added a peace sign.

I provided this to the manufacturer as an Adobe Illustrator (.ai) graphic with CMYK colors.  I also provide the Inkscape .svg and a .png file if there are any questions of the graphics are from different versions of software and not 100% compatible.  Below is the manufacturer's prrof graphic.

After a period of time the product arrives and this is what you get. A gold die cast pin with 2 clutchbacks.  A nice souvenir to remind us of a fantastic time on the Flower Power Cruise.