The Ultimate Guide to Designing Your Own Medals

Features: Typically made of zinc alloy, copper, or other metal materials, each medal possesses substantial weight, a quality feel, and is durable and durable.

Craftsmanship: These medals often feature special features such as luminous, serial numbers, and epoxy resin. Some medal manufacturers, such as WizardPins and GS-JJ, also offer expedited production using UV printing technology for 24-hour production to meet urgent orders.

Applications: Large-scale events, sporting events such as marathons, military medals, and festivals.Applications: Large-scale events, sporting events such as marathons, military medals, and festivals. 
 

Features: Made from a variety of woods, the designs are typically laser-engraved. 

Craftsmanship: With laser engraving, UV color printing, and polishing technology, the wooden medal is simple and natural.

Applications: Various environmentally-themed events, as well as cultural and arts activities.

Features: Acrylic medals are lightweight, waterproof, and cost-effective. The designs are primarily printed, resulting in bright colors.

Craftsmanship: With the technology of screen printing, interlayer and cutting modeling, due to the particularity of acrylic materials, the surface often has clearer and brighter colors.

Applications: Youth competitions, creative competitions.

Features: PVC is soft and flexible, can be molded into various 3D shapes, and is suitable for children.

Craftsmanship: It has soft plastic drop molding, 3D stereo modeling, and silk screen printing technology. In addition, special pigments can be added to the medal to make it glow at night.

Applications: Children's activities, summer camps, and cartoon-themed events.

The first step in custom medals online is to determine the theme of the medal: sports events, corporate events, academic competitions, charity events, individuals or organizations, etc.

Deciding on the shape and size of the medal is a crucial step, as it impacts both its cost and effectiveness.

①How to decide on my medal shape？

1. Regular shapes: Round, square, oval, etc. Round is the most common shape and suitable for most themed events; square is suitable for all corporate celebrations, and other shapes depend on the theme.

2. Custom irregular shapes: Custom medals are designed for specific events, in irregular shapes such as racing cars, bicycles, or various cartoon characters. Additionally, a bottle opener function can be added, combining the medal with a bottle opener.

②How to decide on my medal size？

Medal size depends on the intended use. Medals range from small 1.5-inch medals to large 5-inch medals, with 2.5-inch and 3-inch medals being the most popular.

Both large and small medal sizes offer unique benefits. Large medals are more worthy of display and collection, while smaller medals are more wearable and more affordable.

The thickness and texture of a medal directly impact its feel and quality. Medals are typically around 3mm thick, offering a comfortable feel and visual appeal, making them suitable for all medals. There are several main texture options for medals.

1. Glossy finish—This finish is smooth and simple, often used for hard enamel medals.

2. Matte finish—This medal has a textured feel, creating a subtle, matte finish.

3. Antique finish—simulates the effects of antique bronze, conveying a sense of history.

Each of these medal textures has its own unique characteristics. While they may increase the cost, they can enhance the medal's visual design and create a refined medal.

If you require text or logo engraving, there are two main options for the back of the medal: deep engraving and raised text.

Deep engraving, where the text is engraved inward, is more cost-effective, while raised text, where the text is raised on the back of the medal, requires additional molds, resulting in higher costs compared to deep engraving.

Both medal back options can record information such as the event theme and time, and can also serve as promotional tools.

Metal finishes come in many colors, primarily through cleaning, plating/spraying, polishing/texturing, and special treatments. Through a combination of different processes, metal finishes in gold, silver, bronze, rainbow, black, and other colors can be created. These colors are designed based on the medal theme to meet the needs of various events.                                             

Additional upgrades can add visual flair to medals. The following special finishes are available for consideration based on your budget.

1. Glitter. Creates a sparkling effect under light.

2. Rhinestones. Add rhinestones to your medal to create a luxurious look.

3. Glow-in-the-dark. Allows you to clearly see the medal's design even in dimly lit environments.

4. Translucent. Creates a glass-like sheen.

The medal accessories are the medal rings, which connect the medal and the lanyard. There are mainly open rings and D-shaped rings. The open rings are suitable for use on medals with regular shapes and will not destroy the overall shape of the medal. The D-shaped rings are highly stable, and the medal will not fall off easily.

According to gs-jj's statistics, among every 100 customers, 80% of them will choose open rings, while about 20% of them will choose D-rings. Therefore, split rings are more popular and are also suitable for medals of various shapes.

For urgent orders, the medal ribbons can be selected from existing stock ribbons. For medals with high customization requirements, the ribbons can also be customized according to the event and theme, and event logos, text, or patterns can be added to the ribbons. Medal manufacturers can provide more complex designs.

The choice of medal packaging mainly depends on the budget and the needs of the event. Medal manufacturers usually provide free plastic bags, but more advanced packaging, including velvet bags, plastic boxes, velvet boxes, etc., can be selected if you have a larger budget, the award ceremony is an important competition, or the medals need to be displayed.

Shipping time is a significant factor influencing medal prices. Manufacturers offer discounts based on production and shipping times. For example, GS-JJ offers:

7-business-day production + 3-day shipping, no discount;

15-business-day production + 3-day shipping, 10% discount per unit;

20-business-day production + 3-5-day shipping, 20% discount per unit;

30-business-day shipping + ocean freight for any quantity, 30% discount per unit.

Longer shipping times usually come with bigger discounts. If you have a more flexible delivery timeframe, consider choosing a longer shipping timeframe to enjoy the discount.