I first started trading in 1994 when I was made redundant after many years in the travel industry and quality management. But while waiting for "real" work I indulged one of my hobbies and restored some old toys bought from a jumble sale. Friends and relatives offered good money for my work, so I started taking bits and pieces to craft fairs, charity events, school fêtes and so on. After a year or two, I found that the demand for certain items was outstripping the supply, so I started designing and making my own range of boxed board games, toys and wooden badges.

In 2003 the site was called Wooden-Badges.co.uk and was dedicated to badges made of plywood or MDF board, being the mosy popular products from my original range. When I started making badges from acrylic Perspex™offcuts from a plastics factory I changed the name again to Badges4You.co.uk. That site is still going strong today.

Things bumbled along for a couple of years without any significant increase in work until I redesigned the website early in 2005 and introduced the Badge Gallery. I was very fortunate that Yahoo UK featured the site as an example of good web design. This resulted in a very high placement in the Yahoo directory and all the major search engines. Since then making badges and designing graphic images has become my main occupation. The badges are proving particularly popular with hospital, health care and nursery staff.

Badgegraphics developed because of the huge number of customers asking for custom designs - not only for badges and logos but other personal applications such as signs and images for new websites. Realizing that graphic design was as much fun as making stuff in the workshop I opened this little website to encourage more design work and now enjoy doing both private and commercial commissions.

I couldn't face the prospect of reaching retirement age, switching off my brain and vegetating in front of the TV in my autumn years, so making badges and running this website (along with a couple of others) is how I spend my time. I enjoy the creativity, the contact with customers, and occasionally there's even a bit of extra pocket money!

I hope you enjoy your visit and look forward to serving you if you find something of interest.