Hard enamel pin badges are one of our most popular items at Rocket Badge, and it’s easy to see why. Hard enamel badges are a great way to showcase your brand and design. They’re highly sellable and completely customisable, from the size, shape, colour and material to the way you package and present it. Enamel pin badges are highly durable with a flat design, making them an ideal choice if you seek a badge with long-term durability or a more polished look and feel. However, have you ever wondered how they’re actually made? You’re not alone; we get this question quite a bit! In this post, we walk you through the process so that you understand how we can help turn your vision into the perfect custom hard enamel pin badge.
Create the Design
Creating a design is the first step to producing your hard enamel pin badge. We like to tell our clients that there are three main approaches to design (though there really is no wrong way to make a badge so long as you get the product you want). The typical approaches are to create your own design, to seek help from a professional designer or to work with a manufacturer that offers design assistance.
Creating your own design is a great option for the many artists and illustrators we work with. Your original artwork or logo, no matter how intricate, can be converted and manufactured as a replica hard enamel pin badge. The best tools to use for this, if possible, are Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
Another approach is to find a professional designer to help you turn your bright idea into a design for your manufacturer. Consider finding talented freelancers on sites like Creative Market, Fiverr, Upwork or Behance.
Lastly, another approach to creating a design is to look to your manufacturer. At Rocket Badge, we offer free, expert design services and will help you every step of the way. Not all badge producers offer this, and some charge a fee for it, so if you need a little help with design, be sure to inquire these services before you commit to a manufacturer.
Apply the Design
Once you have a design in hand, the next step in the production process is to create your mould. At Rocket Badge, every mould is bespoke and made to order for each and every badge. This helps us ensure an exact replica for your design, no matter how complex it is, and that the look and finish of it is unique to your badge.
Your mould is stamped into iron, and then the recessed metal is filled with enamel. It’s then put through a high temperature firing process to seal the enamel. Enamel colours can be Pantone matched to ensure an accurate extension of your important corporate or campaign branding. Once it’s done, it’s expertly and carefully hand-polished, giving it a smooth finish and shiny lustre.
Packaging
The last step in the production process is to think about packaging. We provide many custom packaging options, including backing cards in various thicknesses and laminations, or special presentation boxes, including velvet boxes. Adding complementary packaging to your badge adds a little extra fun and polish to your products, especially for those items to you intend to sell or gift to others. Another benefit of packaging is that it provides a nice bit of real estate to include your company information, like your social media hashtags!
For more, please check out this fun, hands-on video featuring myself and my colleague Diana Oliveira. We show you just a few of the special badges we’ve created, including a one-colour premium enamel badge, an intricate badge with gilt plating and black nickel dye and a three-dimensional design. We also show you some beautiful packaging examples, including the backing cards and velvet boxes we mention above. I think it will help you understand the range of our hard enamel badges and clients; we create stunning badges for every walk of life, from designers to nurses!
And we mean what we say at the end of the video; Diana and I are eagerly awaiting your call and your questions! Please get in touch with us today.
