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Following our guide to hard enamel pins, today we are diving into the style most favored by corporations and organizations: Soft Enamel Pins.
The hallmark of the soft enamel process is its distinct tactile, textured feel—where the raised metal lines perfectly contrast with the recessed colored areas. This dimensional, layered look makes it the premier choice for brand promotion, as it flawlessly accentuates your logo’s silhouette and adds rich depth to your brand colors.
To help you completely eliminate long, inefficient email back-and-forths with your supplier, this guide will provide you with an all-in-one blueprint to get your order right the first time.
Here is what you will learn next:
Best designs for soft enamel pins
How to choose size, colors, and plating
How pins are made and priced
Upgrade ideas to make your pins stand out
What Designs Work Best for Soft Enamel?
If your design has dense lines, complex scenery, or a logo with over 5–7 colors, soft enamel is your safest choice. The raised metal lines act as “fences” to separate each color section, completely preventing color bleeding or blurring. This also creates a distinct, embossed depth that looks far more premium than flat printing.
More importantly, it saves money. For intricate, multi-colored logos, hard enamel has a high defect rate and costs significantly more.
Soft enamel handles complex artwork and corporate logos perfectly, ensuring accurate brand colors while keeping bulk production costs to an absolute minimum.
How to Choose the Right Size and Thickness?
We recommend choosing a size between 1.25 and 2 inches.
If the size is too small, intricate text or small color sections will look overly crowded; if it’s too large, the pin can feel flimsy.
This is because soft enamel pins typically have a standard thickness of only around 1.5mm.
You can use the following sizes as a reference:
1″ – 1.25″ (Corporate Logos & Event Giveaways): Best for simple brand logos. This size is lightweight, won’t pull on fabric, and looks sharp on lapels or hats. It offers the maximum cost advantage of soft enamel, making it the top choice for high-volume promotional orders.
1.5″ – 1.75″ (Multi-Colored Logos & Anniversary Badges): The safest choice if your logo includes sub-graphics or more than 5 colors. It gives the metal lines enough room to stretch out so every color stays crisp and distinct. It provides a solid presence without feeling flimsy or too thin.
2″ and Above (Complex Illustrations & Scenery/Architecture): A must-have size if your design features dense lines or tiny text. Since soft enamel relies on raised metal lines to act as “fences” to hold the paint, a larger canvas ensures precise color filling and stops intricate details from blurring together during molding.
However, rather than second-guessing the size on your own, it’s always best to get expert advice. The sales team at VeperPins is ready to help you make the right choice (sales@veperpins.com).
How Many Colors Can a Soft Enamel Pin Have?
Theoretically, there is no limit. You can use any Pantone color you want on a single pin, provided that the size of your pin is large enough to maturely accommodate all of them.
However, most of our clients typically stick to 3 to 7 colors. Soft enamel colors are naturally vibrant, and using too many can easily clutter the design, leading to an over-embellished or messy look.
Best Plating Options
You are not limited to traditional shiny gold or silver plating. For a bolder look, dyed black plating is also a popular choice.
Many clients choose this finish because the bright enamel colors stand out beautifully against the black metal lines. The result is a strong contrast that feels modern, clean, and eye-catching.
How Soft Enamel Pins Are Made
From design to the final product, the manufacturing of a soft enamel pin typically involves the following 8 core steps:
- Artwork Production: Converting your design into a professional production blueprint labeled with metal lines and Pantone color codes.
- Mold Making: Precisely engraving the design onto steel to create the positive and negative molds, which define the pin’s line details.
- Stamping: Using high pressure to stamp the pattern onto a metal sheet, then cutting out the pin’s outer shape.
- Attachment Welding: High-temperature welding your chosen backing—such as butterfly clutches, safety pins, or magnets—onto the back of the pin.
- Polishing: Deburring and polishing the pin’s surface and edges to ensure a smooth finish.
- Plating: Coating the pin with real gold, silver, or soft enamel’s signature Dye Black finish.
- Color Filling: Using syringes to precisely inject pigment into the recessed areas, followed by high-temperature baking to cure.
- QC & Shipping: Inspecting each pin one by one for defects like scratches or color overflow, then packaging and securely shipping them to you.
Custom Soft Enamel Pin Pricing
Soft enamel pins are more budget-friendly than hard enamel, with an average unit price of around $1.25 USD. By applying a VeperPins discount code, you can bring that average unit price down to $1.03 USD.
Of course, this is a standard baseline price. If your design is highly complex or features more than 10 colors, the price will naturally be a bit higher.
Make Your Soft Enamel Pins Stand Out
- Glitter: Mixed directly into the pigment and filled into recessed areas, perfectly framed by the metal lines to catch the light beautifully.
- Glow in the Dark: Luminous powder is added to specific color sections, allowing them to glow in dark environments—perfect for making focal parts of your design pop.
- Epoxy Coating: The perfect companion for soft enamel. A clear protective resin is poured over the surface, instantly filling in the recessed areas to create a smooth, flat finish that protects the paint while offering a hard enamel-like feel.
- Rhinestones: Faux gemstones are embedded into pre-recessed metal areas, creating a striking contrast against the vibrant soft enamel colors for a more luxurious look.
- Translucent Paint: A unique soft enamel feature where special metal textures (like recessed grid patterns) are engraved into the base before a translucent paint is applied, allowing the underlying metal texture and dimension to shine through.
The Ultimate Brand Booster
So, looking at all these cool options and photos, are you ready to order a batch for your own company?
You’re spot on—it’s a no-brainer.
When it comes to promo gear or team swag, custom soft enamel pins are easily the best bang for your buck. They nail your company logo colors perfectly, and you can mix things up with cool details like Dye Black metal lines or a touch of glitter. It’s a high-quality, high-vibe accessory that your team and clients will actually want to wear—making it a walking billboard for your brand.
Stop overthinking it. Drop us your design, and let’s get this batch started!
