Design Concept and Color Theory

▶ Watch (3:14)

Mara Williams started with sketches inspired by a jeweler’s lens and a scarab beetle’s wings. She wanted the badge to fold out like beetle wings. She spent months tuning opacity and magenta shades. The badge uses subtractive CMY lenses. Layering them creates RGB. Hold the magenta and yellow lenses together for a red filter. Look at the cat art in the venue: the skeleton pops out. Blue and red lenses reveal circuitry on the face. A cyan lens offers another view.

Production Challenges

▶ Watch (8:01)

A typhoon in Vietnam knocked out factory power for 11 hours. That hit during the main production run. Tariffs made shipping a race: everyone tried to beat the new rates. ICSN managed to get badges close to on time. Earlier, a last-minute switch from rivet to screw caused badges to fall apart. Sourcing 28,000 of any part is hard. Paper badges filled the gap until the shipment arrived.

Personal Reflections and Future

▶ Watch (9:13)

Williams refused to romanticize the badge designer role. She said one year is too short for a project of this scale. No room for errors or proper testing. She had to draw designs right before the print deadline. She announced a two-year badge cycle: next year she will not design badges. She wants to attend con and do hacker stuff instead. Her badge challenge is at the arts and entertainment booth in the vendor area.

Notable Quotes

Um, there was a typhoon in Vietnam. Um, and it knocked out power to the factory for 11 hours. Mara Williams · ▶ 8:15

I don’t want to romanticize the idea that the badge designer can overcome all the odds and bring this crazy project to completion. Mara Williams · ▶ 9:13

I’ll be moving to a two-year badge cycle. So next year I won’t be doing the badges so that I have a whole two years to do this well. Mara Williams · ▶ 10:30

Key Takeaways

  • The DC33 badge uses CMY lenses to create RGB effects and hidden images.
  • A typhoon in Vietnam caused an 11-hour factory outage, delaying badge production.
  • Williams announced a two-year design cycle to allow proper testing and reduce burnout.

About the Speaker(s)

Adam915 is the DEF CON Groups Global Coordinator.

Jayson E. Street is the Chief Adversarial Officer at Secure Yeti and the DEF CON Groups Global Ambassador. He has spoken at DEF CON, DEF CON China, GRRCon, SAINTCON, and other conferences. He is the author of the “Dissecting the Hack” series. He has robbed banks, hotels, and other facilities on five continents as a penetration tester.

Alethe Denis is the DEF CON Groups Dept 2nd Lead.