Family app Hoop gets in the Mother's Day mood with new badges by Marion Deuchars

You know those “Baby on Board” badges that pregnant women wear in public to ensure that some scruffy herbert gives up their seat on a crowded 172 bus during rush hour? They’re handy, sadly necessary, and, well, a little boring.

Or at least that’s what the team at Hoop – a “family activity” app which allows doting parents to find interesting things for their beloved offspring to do on a Saturday afternoon – seems to think. Having conducted research which concluded that “28 per cent of pregnant women feel overlooked on public transport”, with 45 per cent of the London-based respondents confirming they felt that way, they’ve decided to launch a series of bright and bold badges which they hope will encourage tube-users and train-riders to move over for mums-to-be.

“That sounds like a valid project, but why are you telling us, It’s Nice That,” we hear you say. “Well,” we say back, “the set of new badges have been put together by Marion Deuchars in association with Erin Aniker and Ellie Thompson.”

Marion, we’re told, based her badges on her own experiences of pregnancy. “One of the things I remember about travelling whilst pregnant was that vulnerability; the fear of having a briefcase accidentally swung into me, or someone squashing me against a door,” she’s quoted as saying in the release that accompanies the release of the new badges. “You can’t have a warning sign or flashing lights on your pregnant tummy, and sometimes many women don’t have a big bump, so being drawn to an eye-catching badge is a good alternative!”

The aim of the game, so says Hoop co-founder Max Jennings, is to “help parents get out of the house, have fun with their kids and generally make their lives easier.”

All six of the badges – Marion, Erin, and Ellie have divided up the design work between themselves – are available free of charge via the Hoop website.