13 April, 2022

Branding Options For Promotional Pens

One of the most important parts of purchasing promotional pens is branding. Some people, they want to cram as much information as they can onto the pen. For others, they want to keep it simple, but there are certain rules you should adhere to which will ensure you get the most out of your pens in regards to advertising your business or cause to the recipient.

Let’s start with plastic pens. There are three options for branding. Pad printing, screen printing and direct digital printing.

Pad printing is the most common form of branding. Each colour is printed individually onto the pen. As it is printed from a pad, it cannot print all the way around a pen. When considering pad printing, choose a pen that has at least 7mm in height to print. This means you can get two lines of print. We always strongly recommend the company name on the first line and second line either the website or phone number. If you want both a website and phone number, print one of them on the other side of the pen. If your logo is not too big, we recommend you put it to the left side of the artwork and have the name to the right.

The second form of branding is screen printing or others refer to it as wrap printing. As the description sounds, it means the branding is wrapped around the barrel of the pen. You can’t do this with every style of pen. There needs to be a good distance from the end of the clip to the front of the barrel. If you are doing them in bulk quantity direct from overseas, the manufacturer can also print before attaching the clip, which allows for full coverage on the barrel. Screen printing is a great way to brand promotional pens because you can fit a lot more information. What you need to consider though is how people hold the pen and what information they see first. If you ware wanting to drive people to your website, you don’t want it so the website sits “under” the pen and is never seen unless they roll the pen around. You want anything important to be in those first few lines where people hold the pen but can still see the barrel.

The third type of branding which is becoming hugely popular nowadays is direct digital printing. This allows for full-colour graphics to be printed, including tonal. This can’t be achieved through pad printing or screen printing and the quality nowadays makes it incredibly popular. If you have a lot of colours in your logo or perhaps you want to print an image, this is the ideal branding method. Perhaps you run tour groups, or you run an animal shelter. You could get images of the animals printed on the pens. Just try and get a pen that is thicker, so you have a bigger print area. Ideally, you want a 9mm height or a pen that gives you an option to wrap print digitally. This means you can literally cover the entire pen with full-colour graphics.

When it comes to metal pens, the classy way to brand them is with engraving. This removes the top layer of metal, exposing the metal underneath and the contrast between the two, allowing people to see what you have branded. The great things about engraving are the perceived value of the pen goes up and also engraving lasts the life of the pen. Printing can sometimes get scratched or just wear off with time, whereas engraving will last the life of the pen. Engraving should be understated, so don’t go cramming a lot of information on the pen. Keep it simple and classy.

At Pensonly, we have been branding pens for over 20 years, so if you need any advice on artwork for your pen, don’t hesitate to contact us either by phone or email.

The Pens Only Team