How do I make an Enamel Pin Badge?   

Enamel Pins are a hugely popular commodity for businesses, artists and creatives, clubs, charities, and retailers. As a timeworn favourite for showing belonging, backing a cause, promoting a brand or bringing artwork to life as a desirable and collectible piece of mini-art or just putting a message across – Pin Badges tick all those boxes and once you start to notice them, you’ll see them everywhere you look!

I have got a great idea for a unique Pin Badge design!

At the heart of the pin making process is the design that the badge is based upon. You will find plenty of additional support on our Help Desk and we recommend creating a bold design that shows its coloured areas well and where intricate detail is kept to a minimum. The combination of translating artwork into metal and enamel art is tremendously versatile. If you have the know-how to use graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop or similar these are great tools to create your badge design. Alternatively, you will find plenty of capacity online with free design tools that will help generate your Pin design.

However, you do not have to be an artist with access to software in order produce a badge design. You can commission a graphic designer to bring your idea to life or if working with us, our talented design team will turn your idea into a digital illustration completely free which comes as part of our Orders service.

Which process should I choose? What is the difference between Hard and Soft Enamel Pins?

An enamel pin starts life as a metal base that is stamped from metal. This is where the term ‘die struck’ comes from. In all Enamel Pins, raised metal outlines are created to contain each different enamel colour to prevent it from spilling into another area of the design. A Hard Enamel Pin is the Premium of Enamel Badges and has many phases within production to achieve this. The Enamel is filled to the surface of the raised metal and when the Pin is finally ground and polished at the end of the process if has a smooth feel to the touch of the surface. A Soft Enamel Pin has a single coating of enamel inserted by syringe and once baked to harden; the raised metal lines can be felt as you run your finger over the surface of the badge.

SUMMARY	Soft Enamel Pins	Hard Enamel Pins
Surface feel	Contoured feel to the touch	Smooth and flat to the touch
Enamel	Single coat of enamel to the recessed areas	Filled with enamel to the surface of the raised metal
Options	Use of a smooth Epoxy Resin Coating is possible to create a smooth surface and a wide variety of metal plates	Perfect for Silkscreen print of fine detail to the smooth Hard Enamel surface
Features	Faster to manufacture	Longer to manufacture
	Cost is lower	More expensive
	Jet black plating	Dark silver plating rather than black
	Brilliant for promotional events and retail	Make excellent retail and merchandise products
	Less durable	Highly durable
We say…	A popular choice with the classic contoured feel. Fabulous retail and promotional Enamel Pins	The Premier of Enamel Pin Badges. Premium quality, make superb Awards, mementoes, and retail products

Happy with that, I have a solution for my badge design and the process. How is the enamel pin badge made?

Once you have signed-off the Digital Proof which we create from your original badge design, making the necessary adjustments for manufacture to spaces and raised lines that will be created in metal, production commences with a carefully created metal die which is all the raised and recessed areas of metal you will see in your Proof. This die becomes the stamp that imprints into the metal the badge design. Once the stamping and cutting is complete, the metal is plated in the colour that has been selected for the design – gold, silver, dark silver, black, or copper.

If we are making Soft Enamel Pin Badges, next the enamel is applied with a single coat of paint to the recessed surfaces of the metal base. The effect is a contoured surface to the badge where the raised metal lines that separate the enamel colours – a little like the lead in stained glass windows separates the glass segments. The enamel colours of Soft Enamel are bright and vibrant, and you’ll see the visual changes as they catch the light from different directions. Soft Enamel Pins are very, very popular, they are exceptional quality and durable under normal use but not so durable as their Hard Enamel sister.

If the badge is Hard Enamel, then layers of enamel are gradually applied and baked at very high temperature to bring the enamel right up to the top of the raised metal lines. This is followed by hard polishing which brings about a fantastic sheen to the surface of the enamel and contributes to the hard-wearing surface and durability of these premium process enamel pin badges.

I can see the prices on your website. Are there other costs involved for Enamel Pin Badges?

How much your badges cost is related completely to the specification required. Number of colours, fine perimeter cuts or internal-cut-outs, glitter or glow enamel, a back stamp, sequential numbers backing cards and the number of designs you require at the same time are all elements that will increase the cost of your order. The more badges you buy, buying in bulk will definitely help to keep costs down including the costs of the additional specifications required.

Here at Badge Base, you can rely upon our experience and expertise, our free design service, the high quality of our products and the support mechanisms we have in place to guide you through the order process from start to finish. Not least, you can trust we will pick up the phone or get back to you quickly by email if you have a question. We’ve got you covered. Ask us at sales@badgebase.com

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Badge Base | 2 March 2021