Free, no account
Visitor badge maker
A pass that says who someone is here to see and what day it is, printed at the desk.
No signup. No watermark. Your data never leaves your browser.
About the visitor badge maker
A visitor badge is worn by somebody who does not work in the building, and it exists so that anyone who passes them knows two things: that they have been signed in, and who is responsible for them. That is why the host’s name earns as much space as the visitor’s.
The other half of the job is that the badge has to stop being valid. A visitor pass with no date on it is a permanent pass. Print the date, in type big enough to read from the other side of a corridor, and a badge from last Tuesday is obvious to everybody without anyone having to check anything.
There are two ways to run it. Print a stack of dated blanks each morning and write names on at the desk, or keep the editor open on the reception machine and print one badge per arrival. The first is faster on a busy day; the second is tidier and easier to read.
Your badge data stays in your browser. Names, spreadsheets and photos are never uploaded, and never reach any analytics. Your work is saved on this device only.
Start here
Templates for this
Each one opens in the editor with the fields already set up. Change anything you like.
What goes on a visitor badge
- Name
{{name}} - The visitor’s name, set large. The point of the badge is that staff greet them rather than wonder about them, and a name they can read is what makes that happen.
- Visiting
{{visiting}} - Who they are here to see. This is the field that turns a lost visitor into a solved problem, because anyone in the corridor can walk them to the right desk.
- Date
{{expires}} - Today’s date, and the most important thing on the badge after the band. Without it the pass never expires and an old one still works.
- Company
{{company}} - Where they have come from. Useful for contractors, couriers and interview candidates, and it is what goes in the sign-in book next to the name anyway.
Anything in double braces is filled in per person. Put {{name}} on the badge once and it becomes every name on your list.
How it works
Four steps, and none of them is signing up.
- 1
Start from the visitor pass
3 × 2 inches with a red band across the top. The red is doing real work: it reads as not-staff from further away than any word on the badge does.
- 2
Add the host and the date
The visiting field is who they are here to see. Put the date in a fixed, obvious position rather than tucked into a corner at 6 points where nobody will look for it.
- 3
Print the day’s blanks, or print per arrival
Ten badges to a US Letter sheet. Either print a sheet of dated badges each morning with the name left empty, or keep the project open at the desk and print one at a time.
- 4
Set up the return
Put a tray by the door and a small line on the badge asking for it back. Adhesive badges go in the bin; plastic holders get reused tomorrow.
Why a visitor badge needs a date, and how to get it back
A visitor badge is a temporary permission, and a permission that does not expire is not really temporary. If there is no date on it, the badge somebody kept in a coat pocket three weeks ago still gets them past a reception desk, and everyone who sees it will assume it is current. Printing the date fixes that with no system, no scanner and nothing to maintain: any member of staff can tell at a glance whether a badge is from today.
Make the date big enough to read without asking for it. A date at 6 points along the bottom edge is a note to yourself, not a control. Put it under the band at 12 points or more. If you print a stack of blanks each morning, print the date on them rather than writing it in — handwriting is easy to alter and hard to read across a room.
Getting badges back is a physical problem more than a design one, but the design helps. Adhesive badges are the easy answer, because there is nothing worth reclaiming: they get peeled off and binned and the next visitor gets a fresh one. If you use plastic holders, keep a tray at the desk, hold something at sign-in and hand it back in exchange, and print a small line along the bottom asking for the badge to be returned at reception.
For contractors on site for a week rather than an afternoon, use a different band colour and print the end date instead of the day. It is the same badge with one thing changed, and it means somebody walking a corridor at 7am on a Thursday reads as expected rather than as a question.
- A date on every badge, at 12 points or more, under the band
- One colour for day visitors, another for contractors on a multi-day pass
- Adhesive badges for one-off visits, because there is nothing to collect back
- A return line on the badge and a tray at the desk if you use holders
Questions
Make your visitor badge now
The editor opens straight away. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.