By Craig Davidiuk - 12 August, 2020

Designing Enamel Pins: Assigning Base Metal And Painted Areas

Due to the complex nature of die-struck lapel pin...

By Craig Davidiuk - 27 July, 2020

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Electroplating

Enamel pin designers, take note. Many of you are leaving an...

By Craig Davidiuk - 23 July, 2020

Bronze, Silver, Gold and PINK? Electroplating Explained [video]

Electroplating is a complex process is used extensively in...

By Craig Davidiuk - 09 July, 2020

How To Make Enamel Pins

The Lapel Pin Manufacturing Process Explained Follow a pin...

By Craig Davidiuk - 29 June, 2020

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Pin Backs

There has never been more choices for the back of your pin....

By Craig Davidiuk - 21 May, 2020

How To Design Enamel Pins, Step By Step Guide

Our step by step guide walks you through the process to...

By Craig Davidiuk - 29 April, 2020

Custom Years Of Service Pin Program Guide

It's more important than ever to stay connected to your...

By Craig Davidiuk - 29 April, 2020

Enamel Pin Design Template

Our enamel pin template offers tips and tricks for...

By Craig Davidiuk - 21 April, 2020

Finishing Guide For Enamel Pins & Custom Medals

Whenever you buy pins or medals you'll have to select the...

By Courtney Driver - 21 April, 2020

Hard Enamel vs Soft Enamel Pins: What Is The Difference?

The main difference between these two lapel pin types is...

By Craig Davidiuk - 06 November, 2019

4 Tips For Designing Custom Puzzle Pins

The most sought after sport trading pin by any trader at...

By Craig Davidiuk - 18 October, 2019

Custom Enamel Pins .....No Minimum.

One of the top searches that helps people find our site is...

By Craig Davidiuk - 16 October, 2019

DIY Enamel Pin Design: What Size Do I Make My Enamel Pin?

The amount of text and detail on a pin usually decides the...

By Craig Davidiuk - 10 October, 2019

Powering Over Pain At World Transplant Games

Patriotic Pins Help Boost Athlete's Morale Robbie Thompson...

By Craig Davidiuk - 12 September, 2019

The Silly Season: Deadlines You Need To Know About

In our business, TIMING is everything. Please review two...

By Craig Davidiuk - 20 August, 2019

The Top 5 Frequently Asked Questions About Enamel Pins

After nearly 5 decades in the custom enamel pin business,...

By Craig Davidiuk - 07 June, 2019

Designing Enamel Pins Without Paint

A lot of enamel pin designers are leaving the most...

By Craig Davidiuk - 21 May, 2019

Custom Race Medals And Runs For The Cure Medals.

Take a moment to learn about our experience in creating and...

By Craig Davidiuk - 06 May, 2019

Sandblasting & Engraving Textures

Custom sport medals usually showcase a lot of exposed...

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

5 Design Tips For Custom Medals

The beautiful thing about custom medals is that you can...

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

What Size Should I Make My Medals?

How do you create medals that look and feel like the...

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

Attaching Medals To Neck Ribbons

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By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

Stock Ribbon Choices For Medals

Our company offers three different ways to attach your...

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

Full Colour Ribbons For Medals

We feel the ribbon is almost as important as the medal....

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

Customized Logo Lanyards

Lanyards are one of the most versatile promotional products...

By Craig Davidiuk - 03 May, 2019

What Are My Choices for Custom Printed Lanyard Attachments?

Custom printed lanyards offer you more versatility and...

By Craig Davidiuk - 01 May, 2019

Custom Lanyard Badge Holders & ID Badges

When ordering custom printed lanyards, the lanyard is only...

By Craig Davidiuk - 01 May, 2019

Custom Printed Lanyards Buyers Guide

Recent Order By The Flash TV Show In Vancouver Trade Shows...

By Craig Davidiuk - 01 May, 2019

Customizing & Engraving Medal Backs

When purchasing custom sport medals, there are a zillion...

By Craig Davidiuk - 23 April, 2019

What Are The Different Types Of Custom Lapel Pins?

The first you need to make when purchasing custom enamel...

By Craig Davidiuk - 18 April, 2019

What is the difference between 2D and 3D Engraving?

Adding curved or three dimensional elements to your medal...

By Craig Davidiuk - 01 February, 2019

World Paranordics Medal Supplier Prince George 2019

----October 25th, 2018, For Immediate Release--- Ultimate...

By Craig Davidiuk - 31 January, 2019

7 Things To Look For When Selecting Enamel Pin Manufacturers

The word “quality” is very subjective. Using photos online...

By Craig Davidiuk - 31 January, 2019

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Silk Screen Enamel Pins

Silk screen enamel pins help you overcome the most common...

By Craig Davidiuk - 12 January, 2019

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Vectorizing Art In Adobe Illustrator

This video is for artists who want to create enamel pins...

By Craig Davidiuk - 06 November, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Before & After

In this enamel pin tutorial screencast, we dive into the...

By Craig Davidiuk - 31 October, 2018

Custom Lapel Pin Design: Cheat Sheet

Our cheat sheet offers tips and tricks. Be sure to dig into...

By Craig Davidiuk - 30 October, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Illustrator Swipe File

Direct from the desk of our design team, this illustrator...

By Craig Davidiuk - 27 September, 2018

How Do I Specify Colours On Enamel Pin Designs? [Colour Matching...

We haven't come up with a way to see the colours inside...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 September, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design 101: Screencast

This is the video that started it all! Three years ago we...

By Craig Davidiuk - 15 August, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Designer Master Class

To say that the enamel pin trend has had an impact on our...

By Craig Davidiuk - 15 August, 2018

Custom Employee Recognition Pins

It's more important than ever to stay connected to your...

By Craig Davidiuk - 15 August, 2018

Corporate Anniversary Pins, Years Service Pins and Volunteer Pins

It’s important to mark milestones in any organization....

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Clear Enamel

Do you want unique looking enamel pins? One of the most...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

DIY Enamel Pins Design: Textures

Metal pins without paint offer a whole host of creative...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Colour Matching

Color matching is one of the more challenging concepts that...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

Understanding Logo Imprinting

Another topic that baffles our customers is the imprinting...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

What Is Vector Art?

Vector art is the preferred graphics file format in the...

By Craig Davidiuk - 13 August, 2018

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Glitter

The hottest trend in Enamel Pin design is definitely...

DIY Enamel Pin Design: Before & After

Posted by Craig Davidiuk - 06 November, 2018

In this enamel pin tutorial screencast, we dive into the technical side design.  Learn how to set up your designs properly and "see" pins. We layers, silkscreens and the soft enamel process to produce a design for a Canadian band. See the steps required to bring a design to life. This 4 minute video will introduce some advanced techniques to the mix. 

 silkscreen-before-after

 

Tutorial Video For Enamel Pin Design

 


Enamel Pin Designer Tools


Illustrator Swipe File. Get access to all the tools we use in Illustrator every day.

https://www.ultimatepromotions.biz/blog/diy-enamel-pin-design-illustrator-swipe-file

Photoshop & Illustrator Software Settings. Ever wonder what the minimum line thickness is? What your kerning should be set at for text? This document answers the FAQs of software settings.

https://www.ultimatepromotions.biz/blog/diy-enamel-pin-design-cheat-sheet

Enamel Pin Design Guide Video Description


Join veteran pin designer and former factory owner Craig Davidiuk for another awesome screencast! 

 

Craig points out the most common error that designers make is not scaling down the pin design to actual size prior to submitting. When you scale a pin down, the areas for holding enamel can shrink below minimum. The minimum area for holding enamel is 2mm. So the lesson here is to apply a small 2mm dot to the smaller areas in your design to test. Fast forward to 2:50 in the video if you are in a hurry. 


Another issue we often face is coloured lines or text. It's rare that you can design a pin big enough to hold coloured lines. This is why raised metal is the "best practice" for detail lines, shapes, outlines. And when the need arises to add colour to those lines, you can sometimes use silkscreening. This video outlines the steps required to apply a screen to enamel. Fast forward to 2:12 for this topic.

 

Transcription Of This Enamel Pin Design Guide Tutorial 

Welcome enamel pin designers. My name is Craig Daviduk and I’m the owner of Ultimate Promotions dot biz. I’ve been in the enamel pin industry my entire life.


I actually grew up in my parents pin factory helping them to make pins. That was around for about 30 years before we changed our business model and started importing about 15 years ago.


The biggest struggle we come across with our artist clients is helping them to “see” the finished product. So hopefully this video will bridge that gap.I’m going to try a new way of  doing this today [see our channel for 15 other videos like this] and it’s a before and after video. So I hope you like it. We’re going to show you the before art and after picture of the pins so you can see the designs properly.


This design is from a band called Terrance Jack . The reason I pick it is that the number one thing that designers struggle with is text and pin scaling. This pin has two great examples of ways to deal with it.


Graphic designers often submit a design to us at a scale of 6 to 1 or 8 to 1 or even 10 to 1.


So when you are viewing the image on your screen and zooming in and out, you are not getting an accurate picture of what issues might occur in manufacturing. It’s when you scale it down to actual size (not zoom in to your screen) that you reveal these issues.


The other thing I want to point out is that with text on designs we usually try to make that raised metal. This is the other thing designers struggle with is using that raised metal in your designs. The reason we used raised metal for text is that if we surround the raised metal with an enamel colour, it pops. I’d also like to point out that raised black dyed electroplate metal is the designers best friend...because its black! And you can achieve all kinds of artistic effects with black raised metal. The other thing to mention is that this design would NOT work as a gold electroplated pin.


So with the text we’ve used raised metal. But the issue we have to deal with now is the coloured squiggly lines. They are too small to hold colour. So what’s the workaround? You can’t always change your designs so that raised metal is used. So we use this technique called silks screening.


Silkscreening requires you to think in layers. After you design your pin, fill it with colour, and screen over top of larger enamel areas. The nice thing is you are not limited by any colours or scaling issues as long as you have enough area to add the silkscreen to.


The other thing I want to talk about  is with this design you have to look at the moon. Look how small that area is. So if I zoom into this, the way I’d determine if this area is big enough to hold colour and in this case, it works. The top and bottom of moon do not meet minimum area requirement but because there is an area to drop the liquid epoxy into, it should flow nicely.


One final note that I’ve been working on a new blog for 10 months. www.enamelpin.info There are dozens of articles and resources for enamel pin design.


If you ever have questions, you can submit designs for feedback and I’ll create your own private screencast. Be sure to subscribe to my channel. Thanks and have a great day.

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About The Author

Craig-Headshot-18-temp

linkedinCraig Davidiuk has been in the promotional products his entire life. His family owned and operated a pin factory until 2002 and he eventually took over the company in 2012. He also has a diploma in Media Resources from Capilano University. Today his company is one of the leading suppliers of custom pins, medals and swag in Western Canada.

He is a father of one son with his wife, Courtney. Craig enjoys skiing, mountain biking, DJing, playing saxophone and world travel.  The Davidiuk family resides in 100 Mile House, BC.