I know a man who is a leader of a service-oriented youth group. The kids in this group organize to learn life skills, develop as leaders, and donate their time and energies to local community service projects. For example, last year we got hit by a pretty severe snowstorm that crippled our area for a couple of days. This group of kids and their adult leaders braved the storm and went door-to-door to make sure the older residents had plenty of food and water and furnaces that were working properly.
My friend asked me one day about embroidered patches. The group uses patches on dark blue polo shirts as their uniform, yet they have three ranks: junior member, senior member, and leader. The leaders have an additional patch but there was no distinction between junior and senior members. And they didn't want to add another patch but didn't know what else to do. So I made mention of a couple of motorcycle clubs that do something similar simply by inverting the colors. For example, one club uses a red background with gold lettering for fully patched members and a gold background with red lettering for prospects. So that's what my friend decided to do with his kids.
Flexibility one of the best things about using imported patches for identification purposes. There are so many ways you can combine shapes and colors to get what you want. And by the way, if you're patch reseller you can do the same thing when you're buying wholesale patches. If you're using a retailer like The Cheap Place all you have to do is submit a specific design you're after and they will make sure patches are custom-made. If you can imagine it, somebody can make a patch out of it.
