Promo’s Hottest Trend and How to Approach It

Are you struggling to stand out from the crowd with your merchandise? We understand that it can be challenging to make your products something that your client will want to use and even harder to provide a product that they’ll cherish. That’s why we want to introduce you to our latest post in our decoration series: embossing and debossing.

It’s a decoration technique which has been appearing daily on our Instagram pages and we love it. We’ve seen brands materialise as a result of this trend, such as mon purse which specialises in monogramming items for gifts and personal pleasures. If it’s worthy of the Instagram elite – your clients should experience it too. We’re going to talk you through the difference between debossing and embossing. We’ll then suggest how to use it to decorate your promotional products.

What’s the difference between embossing and debossing?

Debossing is the action of going deep or depressing into a surface. It’s stamping a logo, initials or other artwork into a soft material. This is done by using a metal die to stamp onto the top of a product. Keep in mind, if you want to get the same effect on something made of metal or plastic you’ll have to laser engrave or having some custom moulded.

Embossing is the opposite of a deboss. It’s raising a material to create a 3D effect in the shape of your logo. It works in the same way as a deboss, however, the metal die is stamped from underneath instead of on top.

When should you emboss or deboss?

Debossing or embossing is great for when you want to spoil your staff members, event guests or clients with something extra special. Imagine the feeling they’ll get sitting down to a table at an event dinner and instead of a plain travel wallet with your logo on it – it had their initials debossed onto it neatly in the corner with your logo stamped on the back. What a treasured gift that would be!

Keep in mind, it is a little bit more costly to personalise your products so keep this up your sleeve for extra special events. It’s also a great idea for your HR team to help with staff retention by making your staff feel extra special with a personalised gift.

Variations

There are two ways you can emboss or deboss a product. Number one is to do a blind emboss or deboss. This simply means it’s not foiled or covered and will remain the same colour of the product, i.e. a tone on tone effect.

The second is to get the deboss foiled. You can fill it in with metallic or coloured foil which will make it stand out a lot more. This will not work for an emboss, as you need an empty crevis for the foil to stay put.

When can you emboss a promotional product?

Embossing and debossing works really well on leather, soft plastics such as PU and various card stocks. This decoration technique works best with logos that have minimal detail.

We hope you’ve inspired you to try this technique with your next promotional product. It’s a great way to make your clients or staff feel extra special. If you want more ideas on using promotional merchandise to make an impact, have a read of this.