Promotional badges are a perennial merchandising favourite for businesses year after year, and it’s no surprise why! With typically low manufacturing costs and a quick turnaround, they’re a budget-friendly option that are popular with a wide range of consumers too. There’s so many different options when it comes to designing your perfect promotional badge, that the choice can be overwhelming. There’s a seemingly never-ending list of design choices to be made, from badge type and size to material and colour. In this post, we’ve simplified the different stages of the design process to help you get started.
Choosing the Right Badge
The first step in the design process is selecting the type of badge that will work best for your promotion. This decision will depend on the size of your budget, how you intend to use the badges and how quickly you need them.
- Button Badges: The classic button badge is a popular choice for promotional campaigns of any scale. The time from design, to manufacture and shipping is minimal making them ideal for quick production at scale andthey’re low-cost too. Budget-friendly and quick to produce, they make for the perfect giveaway promotional item.
- Soft Enamel Badges: Typically made from iron material and filled with long-lasting enamel, these badges are cost-effective, highly versatile and durable. The soft enamel badge is a great choice if you’re looking to sell or giveaway a high quantity of badges that will look good and last a lifetime. They can also be customised to perfectly suit your campaign.
- PVC Badges: These quirky, rubber badges are the ideal option for adding a playful twist to campaigns, especially those aimed at children or young people. As the material can be cut to any shape, they’re the perfect canvas for displaying a company logo, product or even a mascot!
Get Creative with Your Design
As promotional badges have become such a popular merchandising item, coming up with an eye-catching design that helps your product stand out from the rest should be a priority. As we mentioned earlier, most badge types are fully customisable so don’t be afraid to get creative with shapes and colours.
Keep your campaign goals and target audience in mind whilst you’re brainstorming your initial design ideas. For instance, if the aim of your campaign is centred around promoting a particular product, consider making it the focus of your badge design. Take for instance, this mouth-watering pin sure to set the taste buds of any pizza-lover tingling.
Size is an important factor too; you could create a series of collectable mini-button badges or perhaps an oversized badge that will be sure to grab people’s attention.
For example, craft beer brewery Brewdog created an eye-catching, covetable set of mini button badges to imitate the look and feel of their beer caps.
Select The Finish
Choosing the right type of finish is an essential part of designing an eye-catching promotional badge. Ultimately, finish is the distinguishing feature between badges and lends it the desired shine, depth and character.
- Shiny Finish: Choosing a shiny finish is a very economical choice, perfect if you’re working to a tight budget and looking for a standard promotional giveaway item. This is also a highly durable finish, the vibrant tones of your design will keep their lustre well into the future.
- Antique Finish: Distinguished and vintage, the antique finish badge is perfect for creating a desirable badge that you intend to sell as part of a promotion rather than giveaway.Typically with an antique finish there’s no colour on top of the badge, instead the badge is finished with a gold, silver, copper or brass effect.
Here’s a great, collectable example from a range of official Harry Potter merchandise showcasing the different Hogwarts houses.
- Black Dye: The unique and striking black enamel finish is a less commonly used choice which makes it stand out from the crowd. This is perfect for brands looking to shake up their merchandising products and add a contemporary edge.
We hope that this post has given you some inspirational ideas on how you can create an eye-catching badge that your customers will love. No matter your goal or business, following our simple suggestions will get you started on the right track to designing the perfect promotional badge for any budget. Now comes the fun part, turning your designs into a physical product that will be flying off the shelves in no time!
