How are coins made?

 

Step1: We receive your coin request

While CorelDraw artwork is preferred, if you take away anything from this guide it's that WE ACCEPT ANY FILE TYPE. Most customers need to modify their art so the easiest way to kick things off is to just submit your file in whatever format you have available. Even a concise description of your design (i.e. "I want a blue heart with the text 2021 in silver metal") is a great starting point! 

Placing an order through the website and attaching the artwork as a file upload is the best way to send it. Alternatively, you can email awardscalifornia@gmail.com with artwork. We typically can respond within the same business day but outside of a few rare cases, it won't be more than 24 hours

We don't reproduce artwork if you don't have the IP rights or proper licensing. We also won't make designs that advocate hate speech.

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Our team creates a line art.

Our talented team of artists will create a line drawing to work with the enamel process. Some designs require a lot of simplification (ex. photographs) whereas others that are set up by graphic artists can be reproduced exactly the same. Every design is a bit different!

 There's a limit on what can be included in the mold use to strike the coins out of metal. In these instances, some details typically are omitted because they wouldn't register on the final product. Each color is outlined by metal -Minimum metal line thickness 
is 0.2mm and the minimum color area is 0.3mm -Text has to be at least 5pt. -Simple designs are best

 Step 3: We select Pantone Colors and a metal tone.

The Pantone color system provides a wide range of premixed and numbered colors, allowing for us to choose enamel colors that match your designs. Additionally, this is the stage where we choose a plating option that will serve as the base metal for your pin.

We don't suggest using more than 5 colors. We've found that designs with more colors typically are too complex to be enameled and are better suited for a printed process. If you really need more than 5, please bring this up in the proofing process and we can confirm how much more expensive it'd be to accommodate.

 

 

 

 

 Custom lapel pin - Awards California

Step 4: We share a digital mock-up.

Your design is finally coming to life and we put together a production sheet to show how we could make your design. This is meant to be a starting point and at this stage you'll see the size, plating options, colors and attachment we would use for your project.

 

 

 

Step 5:You provide feedback until you approve the design.

Most customers require a few rounds of feedback before approving the artwork. It's not uncommon to go through several rounds of revisions, but things typically can go faster if you concisely list the changes you need. The most common changes are to the size, metal plating and colors.

After producing several thousand custom orders for customers, we've found the key to a quick proofing process is clear communication. Listing your feedback in bullets and clearly defining requests (ex. Change PMS 185 to PMS 135) will go a long way to expediting the process.

Sometimes customers want additions or updates to designs that don't work with the production process. In such cases, alterations are not possible.

Small text + details in color sometimes need to be converted into metal lines (or removed completely) to work with this process. If preserving all colors is absolutely required by your branding team, we have other printed styles that can work with any file.

In order to accommodate more detailed designs, the easiest way to set up the art and maintain most of the detail is to use a larger coin size. A lot of customers will select the smallest size and ask for an extremely complex design. If increasing the size isn't an option, some of the detail needs to be removed to make a smaller pin.

 

Final Step: We make the coins and ship them to you!

Once you give us the green light, we'll start producing the coins per the approved proof. Give us a few weeks to make them and then we'll share a tracking number to the email used to place the order.

Our average production time is approximately 4 weeks. Since most of our enamel coins are shipped from India, transit can be anywhere from 1-2 business days to more than a week. If you have a rush deadline, please alert our team at the start of the project.

Given the custom nature of our production process, once you approve a design, we start manufacturing immediately and don't have the option to modify a design.

We individually polybag each coin and master bag in 50s or 100s for most orders.

An order cannot be cancelled once the actual production of the coins has started. To proactively avoid any issues, we strongly recommend samples for approval if time permits.