NotOnSunday celebrates the moon landing’s 50th anniversary with three badges for the Scouts

London-based design studio NotOnSunday has created a set of three badges for The Scouts inspired by the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, both of whom were Scouts, were the first humans to walk on the surface on our closest celestial neighbour as part of the Apollo 11 mission. Eleven of the 12 people that have moon-walked were Scouts as children.

The concept for the Scouts on The Moon badges was to celebrate the anniversary as well as the connection with astronaut Tim Peake, who is a Scouts ambassador. Initially the plan was to award the Scout groups that collectively walked a certain distance with the badge, but the idea was so popular that the association decided to create three commemorative badges that could be gifted and bought through the Scout Store.

The first features a full moon and is inspired by the craters and markings of its surface. “We wanted to create something that had a really different shape to the generic circle or square of a normal badge,” says Wayne Trevor Townsend, founder of NotOnSunday. The second depicts the iconic boot print and the third shows the number 50 made out of a waxing crescent moon and circular new moon.

The studio created 30 to 40 different designs for the badges before settling on the final three. “Because it was such a lovely project we threw loads at it,” says Townsend. “The next best thing to designing a stamp is creating a badge.” The studio also designed background presentation cards for the badges, as well as a foiled leaflet explaining its context that unfolds to create a poster. This artwork has also been used to make prints for The Scout’s HQ at Gilwell Park in Chingford.

It’s hoped that the project will inspire more people to volunteer with the Scouts, as currently 60,000 children are on waiting lists nationwide due to the lack of volunteers.

The project follows a much larger rebrand of The Scouts by NotOnSunday, which focused on expressing the idea that Scouts equips young people with life-long skills. The identity, which launched last year, features a contemporary fleur-de-lis, punchy colour palette and reportage photography of young people, largely outdoors, enjoying themselves.