A machine-embroidered patch depicting a cartoon gopher holding a sword and towering over the planet earth. Around the border of the patch reads "Go Security" at the top and "Securitas Per Simplicitatem" at the bottom. The patch is four inches in diameter and inspired by the deranged National Reconnaissance Office NROL-39 mission patch.
A professionally embroidered patch depicting a cartoon gopher holding a sword and towering over the planet earth. Around the border of the patch reads "Go Security" at the top and "Securitas Per Simplicitatem" at the bottom. This patch has cleaner stitching and brighter colors compared to the original prototype.
photo by Roland Shoemaker

Go Security patch

I was put in contact with Roland Shoemaker from the Go programming language who wanted to get patches made as gifts to the security team! Specifically, he wanted them in the style of the unhinged National Reconnaissance Office mission patches. This was based on the NROL-39 octopus patch.

The first image is a prototype I put together on my home machine, but that was mostly to ensure it would digitize and embroider well - the client really just needed the vector art to pass along to a proper manufacturer. The final result can be seen in the second image.

It seems the manufacturer digitized some things differently than I chose to. Specifically, mine made use of satin stitches for things like the gopher's shadow, their little arms, and the sword - not because it looked the best, but because I was trying to replicate some of the weirdness of the original octopus patch. The manufacturer's choice to do those in a normal fill stitch was probably a better call design-wise, though.

This was a lot of fun to work on!

Made in Inkscape