Custom
Hard Enamel Pins
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The finish, and who wears it
People choose a hard enamel pin for how it turns out. Color is filled into the recessed areas higher than the metal lines, the pin is baked in an oven, and a polishing stone brings the surface down until the metal sits flush with the enamel. The result looks and feels like jewelry, with colors that stay bright and a surface that resists scratches. Even on a jacket worn every day the shine holds for years. People who wear a pin for years and examine it up close are the ones who appreciate this finish most.
Companies order hard enamel lapel pins for staff uniforms and for awards marking service or an anniversary. Tour guides and hospitality crews wear one on a vest or a lanyard where guests see it all day. Small brands and artists sell art pins and merch pins at markets and online, where buyers judge a pin by its finish. Schools and nonprofits order membership and award pins that people keep for years.
Hard enamel and cloisonné
Hard enamel pins and cloisonné pins are two names for one product. Jewelers and collectors often favor the word cloisonné, while many people ordering pins simply say hard enamel.
The name cloisonné comes from the French word cloison, meaning a partition or compartment, the thin metal walls that hold the color. From about the third millennium BC, goldsmiths in Mesopotamia set cut stones and gems into compartments formed by thin metal walls, a technique that later appeared in Egypt. In time, goldsmiths began filling the compartments with enamel, glass ground to a powder and mixed into a paste fused by heat, while stone inlay carried on alongside it for centuries. Six Mycenaean gold rings from a 13th-century BC tomb on Cyprus carry some of the earliest known enamel. Scholars still debate whether the enamel on those rings counts as true enamel. Byzantine goldsmiths brought cloisonné enamel to its height, and it reached China by the late 14th century. Our pins follow the same idea, with color filling the compartments formed by the metal lines. Heat sets it, and the face is polished until the color sits level with the metal.
Hard enamel versus soft enamel
Soft enamel and hard enamel both begin as struck metal. Soft enamel leaves the metal standing above the color, and you can feel a dimple in it. It suits a vintage look or a design you want people to feel with a fingertip. Hard enamel sits flat and glossy, so it is the more durable of the two and reads a bit more premium.
Die struck pins stop at the metal, carrying reflective metal and recessed metal, with no color. For color held between metal lines, the choice is hard enamel or soft enamel, while offset printed and silk screen pins print their color. Our guide to hard vs soft enamel pins walks through how to choose. Clear, separate areas of color suit hard enamel, especially with crisp outlines between them. Bold shapes come through well, and we can cut the pin to any custom shape.
Plating
The plating on a hard enamel pin shows in the thin metal line between colors, in gold, silver, copper, black nickel, black metal, or antique. Against the smooth enamel, that line catches the light when the pin turns.
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Everyday
wear
A pin worn every day on a uniform or a lanyard still looks the way it did when it arrived, years later. The enamel is hard, and the face is flat and smooth, so there is no raised edge to catch on clothing and no soft fill to dent or wear.
Company
logo pins
Flat fields of color with a sharp metal edge make a company logo easy to make out in hard enamel. A sales team can wear it for a product launch, and that artwork can also mark years of service.
Jewelry-like
quality
The smooth glassy face combined with a satisfying weight and rich shine gives the pin real presence in the hand. Companies present these as awards and artists sell them to buyers who study every detail of the finish.
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We've got answers
These are the questions we hear most about hard enamel and cloisonné pins.
Hard enamel pins are metal pins struck from a die, with enamel color baked in an oven and then ground flat until the color and the metal outlines meet. That smooth face holds up to scratches on a hat or a lanyard someone wears every day.
Raised metal over a textured field of color is the soft enamel look. Artwork with a vintage feel, or a design meant to be felt with a fingertip, suits that look. Hard enamel has a flat face that outlasts soft enamel in daily use, and each one starts as a pin struck in metal.
Yes, cloisonné pins and hard enamel pins are two names for the same product.
The process starts by filling enamel paste past the height of the metal lines. Baking in an oven hardens that paste, and polishing on a stone then makes the whole face even. If very small details appear in the art, a silkscreened print can sit on the finished pin and carry them.
A service award is a pin someone studies up close for years, and an artist’s fans look at theirs the same way. They notice color that stays bright and outlines that stay crisp on the face.
Orders start at 100 pins, and the price of each pin comes down as the count rises. Name the quantity you need and the quote will use it.
Production takes 3½-4 weeks from proof approval, often sooner, and transit adds a few days. Shipping is free to US addresses, though APO deliveries are extra. If an event date is driving the order, tell your rep up front.