How to Design Custom Medals Online With Signature Pins
Designing custom made medals is very similar to designing a set of lapel pins. It all starts with you sending us your ideas for a design, and ends with you receiving a high quality custom product with time to spare before your event.
Our soft enamel race medals are created via the die striking method. Once our production team makes a custom mold of your design, the medals are stamped out, one by one. The die striking process results in incredibly detailed, highly durable products that will last a lifetime.
All you need to do to get started is fill out a quote request form, and we’ll have your first free proof of artwork ready within 48 hours. However, before getting started, it helps to know more about the custom options we offer for our custom award medals. Read on to see how you can design the most meaningful and memorable design possible.
Knowing All Your Options for Custom Made Medals
The process of creating a design for any Signature Pins order is a lot of fun. Knowing all of the custom options at your disposal gives you more freedom to create something extraordinary. So, before jumping into the design process, it helps to look over some of our favorite options for custom design.
When it comes to custom running medals and award medals, one of the most important things to consider is the metal plating. We have options for gold, silver and bronze, if you’re looking for finisher medals, and if you want something a little more out of the ordinary, we also have colored metal, black nickel and even rainbow metal.
Another important feature of any custom medal is the size and shape. While lapel pins are generally small, custom medals come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. You can choose something like a 3” medallion or a custom shaped race medal with cut outs. We’ve made custom 5k medals shaped like Santa hats, award medals shaped like merit badges and brand insignias, and even custom bottle opener medals that give marathon runners exactly what they need to crack open a cold drink after the race is finished.
Once you know the general size and shape of the design you need and the metal plating that you like best, one of the last things to consider is whether you want 2D artwork or 3D artwork.
Custom sports medals will sometimes have 3D artwork of equipment like helmets, bats or soccer balls, while a marathon medal will most likely have 3D text that pops from the base layer of the design. However, you don’t need 3D artwork to make a memorable design. 2D artwork is just as capable of capturing intricate artwork as a 3D design. A 2D race medal might not have the same depth, but the classic style will make a lasting impression.
Creating a Custom Ribbon for Your Race Medals
One part of the design process that a lot of people forget about is the ribbon. When you order medals online, some companies don’t offer their customers the ability to personalize the lanyard that will come with the medals. Here at Signature Pins, we give you as many options as possible.
As an extension of the design, custom ribbons should at the very least have complimentary colors. If you want to go a step further, we can include imprinted text and logos along the length of our polyester and nylon lanyards.
The color of the lanyard and imprinted artwork is completely customizable. We also have a variety of lanyard sizes to choose from, so if you want to include oversized block letters or intricate emblems, a wider lanyard will always be a safe bet.
If you want to get even more detailed, we also have sublimated lanyards that have incredibly detailed artwork and vivid colors.
Picture quality lanyards like these are created via the dye sublimation process. This involves printing a digital design onto a sheet of transfer paper and then placing the lanyards and transfer paper into a heat press. The heat from the press causes a chemical reaction that infuses the ink on the transfer paper into the fabric of the lanyard, resulting in a picture perfect design with blended colors and unrivaled detail.
Creating the Highest Quality Award Medals Available Online
Our Signature Pins team has been in the business of designing and producing custom products since the year 2000. The custom race medals we’ve helped design over the years have been used all over the world.
If you’re ready to get started on your own design, give us a call today. We provide free artwork and free revisions to all of our customers, and every order comes with free priority air shipping and a 100% quality guarantee. Our production team will make all of your custom medals in 14 days or fewer, and once they’re shipped, they’ll arrive on your doorstep by the following day.
