“Badges for Badgers” is an initiative brought about by London based 
artist/designer team Alice and Ben, collectively known as Stripey Pipey. Being fans of badgers, which immediately made us fans of them, and the funds raised by the badges will go to help badgers, which is lovely, so we thought we’d knock on their kitchen window and have a chat.
1. Tell us a bit about Stripey Pipey
Ben – I’ve always loved Alice’s illustrations and wanted people to see what she was capable of. We wanted to find a format that suited the characters she was working on, and the graphic qualities needed for a wall sticker were a perfect combination of our skills. So we set up shop online. Since then Stripey Pipey has developed into other things, badges, prints, card etc.. but it did all start with the wall stickers. The name Stripey Pipey is a combination of old nicknames coming back to the surface and an evening of shouting random rhyming words at each other over several glasses of wine. I’m glad we chose Stripey Pipey – it’s probably my favourite thing about the whole project! Alice – For me, starting Stripey Pipey with Ben was a good outlet for all the random illustrations and bits and bobs of artwork I’d been doing for years anyway. Its also a good step towards the dream of being able to quit my day job. I used to sell illustrated t-shirts and odd doll things and painting on a market stall but it never really went anywhere. I feel there’s a lot of promise now in what we are doing with Stripey Pipey. Plus it gives me another good excuse to bother Ben, which I enjoy.2. What is Badges for Badgers?
Alice – Badges for badgers is just that. You buy a badger badge from us, and we will give all profits to the badgers (or at least to people helping badgers – I’ve heard that their claws make it hard for badgers to handle money themselves).
3. Apart from the awesome alliterative quality that practically sells itself, why “badges for badgers”?
Ben -Badgers need all the help they can get at the moment, with an impending badger cull due to start in the summer. We, like many others are whole heartedly against this cruel and rash ‘solution’ to the spread of bovine TB among cattle. We hope in some way by selling our little badges and donating the profits we can do our bit for our stripey friends. Also we do love a bit of alliteration, almost as much as we like rhyming, so the “badges for badges” bit of branding was just a brilliant bonus!
4. Apart from creating impressive badges, what other sorts of things do you do?
Ben – We’re adding to our shop all the time and we’re really chuffed to have just taken delivery of our first batch of greetings cards. On top of this we’ve got sculptures and some prints in the pipellne. So far the shop is mostly a platform for my Alice’s work, but in the future there will be a lot more of my stuff too.
5. Could others species, such as humans wear the badges, or is it an exclusive badgers only design?
Ben – Yeah humans, thats a great idea, why didn’t we think of that? They could wear them on their clothes!
6. We can already assume that from your badges for badgers campaign that you are pro Meles Meles, so will skip this question, but if you had to choose a favourite badger, who would it be, and why?
Alice – If we don’t say our friend Ben ( another one) we will get into trouble. Mr Ben Lyford you are our favourite badger.
Ben – The one from wind in the willows is pretty cool too.. so dapper
7. If you had to choose a Newsnibbles story to turn into a piece of art, which would it be, and why?
Alice – Who wouldn’t want to illustrate a story entitled “Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop Arrested”
8. Who inspires you?
Ben – Alice
Alice – Our cat Willis
9. What’s next for Stripey Pipey?
Alice – We’ve got so many ideas on the go. There’s a book in the works about a girl who stands against the norm by wearing a lampshade on her head (or something like that).
Ben – and we would also love to animate some of our work. Oh, and we’re getting married!
10. Anything you would like to add.
Please go to www.stripeypipey.com and buy your badger badge!
