Design Tips

The simple option for 'text only' badges: tell us by email what text you want on your 25mm or 38mm badges. Please state the basic font name, the font colour and the basic background colour (eg "hello mum" in comic sans font, blue text on a white background).  It helps us if you give us a list of fonts as we may not have your first choice on file. We will best size the text to fit our badges. The text may need to be spread over several lines.  Please keep in mind our 25mm badges are the diameter of a 10p piece. If you need a lot of text or would like large text on your badges we advise you to choose our 38mm badges. The more words the smaller your text will be!  Please wait for us to confirm we can make your badges before paying if you are unsure.  If you need the text to curve around the edge of the front face of the badges we can usually do this for you if you let us know.

Or send your logo (as a jpg, pdf, png or gif image)  Leave as much 'background' around the image as possible. We will resize your image to best fit our badges for free. If your logo is not one of the above file types please email us first to check that we can use it. Please remember to let us know which size badges you would like.
The background colour of the logo will be the background colour of the badge.  Please do not ask us to put your logo on a different colour background. You need to design your own badge (below) if you want a different colour background (unless the background is transparent).  
We can always shrink a large logo down to size but we can't increase the size of your image without it losing quality.  As a quick test you can open our design template and look at the inner circle.  If your logo nearly fills or is bigger than the inner circle it should be suitable for us to use. Please email us if you are unsure and we will be happy to help!

Alternatively you can use our standard method and design your own badges:
We advise you to use one of our large circle guides which you can download below: Download circle guide for 25mm badges HERE 

Download circle guide for 38mm badges HERE
(Internet Explorer users: right click the above link and select 'Save Target As'.  Firefox users right click the link and select 'Save Link As').

HOW TO USE THE CIRCLE GUIDES
We advise you to save the RGB format circle template from the link above. You can then open the template with your favourite design software and follow the instructions below:
Please ensure your main design (text and images) fits well within the inner circle before removing (erasing) the inner circle. 
Your background colour (or pattern) needs to extend to (or very near to)  the outer circle. The space in the outer circle is the 'bleed' area.  It may be seen on the sides of your badges as this outer circle wraps around the sides and back of your badges in the manufacturing process.

FURTHER DESIGN TIPS
Please do not shrink our circle guide, make your design on this large scale for best results. Then email it to us. Try to make your design as high a resolution as possible (we prefer 300 dpi).  If you are uncertain try printing your design before you send it to us to get an idea of what it really looks like (as opposed to on a bright screen). Remember colours will look bolder on a back lit computer screen than when printed.   Please make sure you use contrasting colours to make your designs stand out when printed. Our preferred format is jpg, but we can also usually work with a gif, png or pdf. Please email us first if you need to send your image in a different format. If you are given the option please send your design in RGB format. Please note that we do not accept .pub files.
 Remember small text on your design will be even smaller on the badges! (so try to make any text as large as possible).

COLOUR FORMAT