You’ll see them on tote bags, backpacks, jackets, lapels and hats. They represent popular culture, strange obsessions, artistic explorations and personal viewpoints. Enamel pins are everywhere. Eduardo Morales began his Instagram account @pinlord back in 2015 and it became an obsession. Promoting all things enamel pin, it’s visited by thousands each day – a testament to the pin’s popularity.
Pin Game Strong – Collect, Create, and Celebrate Your Ultimate Enamel Pin Collection is a tribute to these cute and collectable items. Covering the history of enamel pins, the recent surge in interest and designer stories, this small book is comprehensive. It documents and celebrates the unique designs that characterise the pin game and the stories behind their creators. Makers include Inner Decay, which went from a part time hobby for Morgan Watt to a full time business, Lady Love Letters which helped maker Chiang Pinkney ‘find myself again’, Yuliya Veligurskaya who used the design skills she learned in her architecture degree when setting up Studiocult.co and Charlie Wagers whose brand Lost Lust Supply has been stocked by Urban Outfitters.
Independent sellers and big brands are all in on the game, and you can find enamel pins everywhere. But Pin Game Strong knows that DIY matters, and devotes a whole section of the book to helping you make your own badges.
Stylistically it reminds of the very thing it is about – bold and bitesize in colour and form. It’s easy to dip into, and guaranteed to raise a smile, whether you thought you were that interested in the subject or not. Good fun.