Ten metres is unimpressive, and that isn't the point

One embroidered badge, drawn large and slightly off true. A frayed corner where the stitched edge has started to give, the raised direction of the thread visible across the cloth. Two lines stitched into it: TEN METRES. 1st.

Ten metres is not far. Nobody who gave him that badge was related to him, and that's the part that counts.

Why draw it worn and slightly crooked instead of clean and square?

Because that's what the actual object looks like after it's been carried in a swim bag, sewn on crookedly by somebody in a hurry, and handled more than anything else in the drawer.

A flat, symmetrical reproduction would read as a logo — a badge as it looked in a catalogue, not the one that's actually his. The fray at the corner and the slight tilt are evidence that this particular scrap of cloth has a history: it went through a wash, got sewn on by hand, and has been picked up and looked at more times than anyone bothered to count.

Why does it matter that this was the first award from outside the family?

Because up to that point, everything he'd been praised for came from people who love him unconditionally, and this didn't.

A parent's approval is a given; a swimming instructor's is not — it's a stranger applying a standard that has nothing to do with affection. That distinction is what makes a small stitched rectangle outrank almost everything else he owns: it's the first evidence that he can meet a standard set by somebody with no reason to be generous about it.

Why is the actual distance allowed to be so small?

Because printing an impressive-sounding number would misrepresent what the badge is actually recording.

Ten metres is roughly the width of a room. What's being marked isn't a feat of endurance — it's the first time an outside body looked at what he did and confirmed it met a bar. The size of the bar is almost beside the point; a badge for twenty-five metres would record the same kind of moment, just later. Printing it small and specific, rather than rounding it up into something grander, keeps the record accurate to what actually happened.

Whose permission does something like this need?

This is where the answer changes from every other design in this collection: a badge like this cannot be a reproduction of a real one, and that isn't a formality.

A club crest or a school emblem is a mark like any other — owned by somebody, and licensable the way any artwork is. A certification badge is different in kind. It doesn't just decorate; it claims — it asserts that a specific body verified a specific standard was met. Nobody, however easy they are about crests and logos generally, licenses you to make that claim on their behalf, because the claim is the entire content of the mark. So the badge has to be invented: your own wording, your own stitch pattern, describing what actually happened rather than borrowing a real federation's design to say it for you. That isn't a workaround — it's the version that's actually true to the object, since the real badge was never a JustOG print in the first place.

Does this work for other things a child gets awarded, or only a swimming badge?

Anything that arrived as physical proof of an outside standard being met — a certificate, a stripe on a belt, a rosette from a small local show, the same kind of outside validation a show ribbon marks for a dog rather than its owner.

The badge itself changes; the shape of the design doesn't. Draw the actual object with its actual wear, invent the wording rather than copying a real body's, and keep the achievement as small and specific as it really was.

Isn't ten metres too small an achievement to build a shirt around?

No — the size of the achievement was never what made it worth printing.

What's being recorded is the first time approval arrived from outside the house, not a personal best. A badge for ten metres and a trophy for a swimming gala mark different things entirely, closer to a chart recording a private, ongoing negotiation than a public contest — this one only needed to happen once.

How does a design like this actually hold up on fabric?

Well, as long as the embroidery texture is suggested rather than reproduced literally.

Satin-stitch thread has a raised, directional sheen that a flat print can't physically replicate, so the design should render it as clean directional linework rather than trying to fake the texture — the same instinct behind rendering a lumpy, unglazed piece of school pottery as it actually is rather than smoothing it into something tidier. Two or three colours — the cloth, the stitching, maybe a shadow at the frayed corner — is plenty.

How do I get one made?

Describe the badge at JustOG — what it was for, and who actually gave it to him. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

The real badge is still sewn onto a swim bag nobody uses any more.