Artwork Guide For Custom Pins What To Send Your Factory

Send Vector If You Possibly Can

Adobe Illustrator files are the ideal, because the die is cut from outlines and a vector file already is outlines. JPG, PNG and PDF are accepted and get redrawn, but redrawing is interpretation, and interpretation is where small differences creep in between what you imagined and what arrives. If your design came from a designer, ask them for the original file rather than the export. If it came from a badge made twenty years ago, send the badge itself.

Line Weight Is The Constraint Nobody Anticipates

A pin is small, and every colour area needs a metal line around it to hold the enamel. Those lines have a minimum workable thickness, and so do the gaps between them. A design that looks detailed and elegant at screen size can turn into a solid blob at 25mm, because the lines thicken to the minimum and the gaps close. The fix is never subtle: either the pin gets bigger or the design gets simpler. Deciding which, early, is far cheaper than discovering it at the sample stage.

Colour Needs A Reference Not A Description

Enamel is mixed and matched by eye against a physical target. A colour described as navy, or picked from a screen, will not survive that process reliably. Supply a colour reference number with the artwork and it goes to the operator doing the filling, and it stays on file with the die so a reorder is checked against the same target rather than matched against memory. This single habit prevents most of the complaints about batch two not matching batch one.

Gradients Photographs And Fine Text

Enamel cannot do gradients or photographs, because it needs a wall between colours. If your artwork depends on either, the honest answer is offset printing with a clear epoxy coat, not a redrawn enamel version that loses the point of the design. Fine text is a separate problem: lettering below a certain size stops being legible once it acquires a metal outline. Either enlarge the text, simplify it, or accept it as texture rather than something anyone will read.

Decide The Finished Size Before Anything Else

Almost every artwork question resolves itself once the finished size is fixed, because size determines what detail can survive. Work backwards from where the badge will sit: a lapel pin on a suit reads differently from a badge on a blazer pocket or a coin held in the hand. Quote the size you actually want rather than asking what is standard, because pins are priced per piece at the dimension you specify.

What To Send With Your Enquiry

The artwork, the quantity, the finished size and the date you need the goods. That is enough for a firm price. If you already know the process you want, say so; if not, describe how the badge will be used and the recommendation follows from that. The minimum is 100 pieces per design, and each colourway counts as a separate design for that purpose.