The Project

Dickinson Explorer approached Pins By Design with a colorful design for its Fundraising Retro Run event. The artwork featured bold retro typography, a sunset with graduated colors, geometric mountain landscapes and a vivid grid pattern.

The challenge was preserving the original artwork's distinctive gradients and fine details in a custom metal pin.

The Design Challenge

Traditional soft enamel is ideal for creating bold, solid colors separated by raised metal lines. However, the smooth color transitions in this design could not be accurately reproduced using enamel alone.

Rather than simplifying the artwork or losing the retro visual effect, we developed a hybrid manufacturing approach.

Our Solution: Enamel + HDUV Printing

We combined traditional enamel with high-definition UV printing to achieve the best of both techniques.

Enamel provided the traditional custom pin finish, while HDUV printing allowed us to reproduce the detailed artwork, fine lines and vibrant color gradients that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.

The result was a custom school event pin designed to stay faithful to Dickinson Explorer's original artwork.

Custom School & University Pins

At Pins By Design, we manufacture custom lapel pins for schools, universities, student organizations and special events.

Whether your artwork requires traditional enamel, detailed printing or a combination of manufacturing techniques, our team can help identify the right production method to bring your design to life.

Have a custom school pin project? Request a free quotation from Pins By Design.