Button Power
While voting technically began in the US in 1776, it’s been a constant struggle for many populations to be able to actually vote. So many barriers have been put between us and those who are supposed to represent us based on our gender, race, property ownership, literacy, ability, the list goes on. And then there are people who just don’t vote. For these reasons, buttons encouraging people to vote go as early as 1898, just two years after the button was invented!
Voting is certainly a privilege and a right that people have fought for since the formation of our government and continue to fight for.
Down with gerrymandering!
Down with all the hoops people have to jump through to get their votes to count!
Allow people who have committed felonies to vote!
– Christen Carter, Author of Button Power & Founder of Busy Beaver Button Co.
Resources & Events
Button Power: 125 Years of Saying It with Buttons
By Christen Carter and Ted Hake
The first book of its kind, BUTTON POWER is a rich visual feast showcasing over 1,500 buttons. You can see how design and messaging have been used spanning over a century!
The buttons featured in the book are from the collections of Ted Hake and Christen Carter and a couple of their collector friends. They range from very common like the Book It! buttons given away by Pizza Hut since the 1980s to the very rare Cox/Roosevelt button from 1920.
Buy the BookButton Power – A Virtual Lecture
October 28, 2020 — 11am–12pm
Founder of Busy Beaver Button Co. & the Button Museum, Christen Carter, will give a free talk role of buttons in causes and activism, the evolution of button design in activism, the role buttons have played in important movements, and the equity of buttons as a relatively cheap and easy form of protest.
Presented by Civilization’s Design Lecture Series and Design for America’s Spark Series
Get Free TicketA button is such a primitive communication device. We think about electronics and social media when we think of things going viral, but ideas can be spread just as easily by wearing a button.Milton Glaser
Gallery
