Making Custom Coins With Licensed Images
A company’s brand is more than just their public image. It's a delicately shaped identity that is fine-tuned to elicit an emotional response as much as a practical association to what a company is offering to the community. Because of this, all companies are very particular about how their brand is handled. At Signature Coins, we have been fortunate enough to earn the business of several highly recognizable businesses and corporations over the years.
Understandably, each of these companies has specific guidelines and regulations when it comes to creating new designs that incorporate the established style and artwork of their brand. No one understands this better than Bryan Livingston from Mobile Edge, a licensed vendor of Alienware products. Mobile Edge makes custom computer cases, backpacks, shirts, hats and sweaters for Alienware, but Livingston came to us when it was time to start making custom coins. He sent over materials from Alienware that our artists could use in the designs, and we created several proofs of artwork for him to look over. Livingston said, “The head with the eyes and the word mark Alienware (the font type) is very important with their logo and gets a lot of scrutiny.”
Attention to detail was the center of our approach to creating every draft of the Alienware coins. What we came up with was a perfect balance between the company’s traditional style and refreshing new design.
Breathing (Extraterrestrial) Life Into the Coin Design
Designing custom challenge coins is an exciting experience. There is a lot of brainstorming involved, and the process of watching ideas evolve from sketches to a final product fills you with a sense of pride. Livingston had a clear vision for the Alienware coins and jumped into the design process with confidence. The coins are all used at video game conventions and shows that Alienware attends like E3 and PAX West. They set up booths that display the latest Alienware tech and other products for fans and followers to check out.
Alienware computers are designed to be gaming computers, so Livingston wanted to create a custom video game challenge coin in the spirit of the industry. “These are ultimately going to be gaming ‘challenge’ coins which I think are normally 3-3.5mm thick,” he said while talking with our sales team. He wanted the design to have a significant weight to it, and said that the coins should make a “thud” sound when dropped on a tabletop. The first run of coins were all 3mm thick, but he upgraded all subsequent orders to 4mm.
The coins pictured below were the first set we made for the company. Livingston said that the coins were intended for their 2017 PAX West appearance, and ordered 100 coins. He said, “The initial strategy, to create demand, is to make a very limited production of the first coin to create awareness for the next coin run.”
This first design utilizes antique gold plating, giving the coin a weathered look. The front side of the coin has the traditional Alienware logo (the alien head), and the flip side depicts the company’s powerful Area-51 gaming computer. We were eager to hear what Livingston thought of the coins and how they were received by fans once the entire set had been delivered.
Livingston reached out to us saying, “The coins are sick! Everyone so far loves them. They were executed perfectly. Nice work! I should have another order soon.” We have made several unique coin designs for Alienware, the most recent being used at PAX Australia 2018, and we look forward to making many more in the future! Any company looking to make custom coins representing their brand can trust our art team to get the job done right.
Branding With Challenge Coins
The only way to get yourself one of these awesome Alienware challenge coins is to stop by one of their booths the next time you find yourself at a PAX or E3 convention. Or you could check out the licensed vendor we made these coins for, Mobile Edge, and see what they have available. All of our products are custom made for each client, and when it comes to incorporating licensed imagery into a coin design, the contact on the project needs to have written approval to use the images.
We take careful consideration in every element of design, especially when it comes to artwork incorporating a company's brand. We use the Pantone Color Matching System to ensure that company colors are translated perfectly into coin design and have the ability to recreate logos like the Alienware alien head or any other kind of artwork a business may have.
All of our clients have their own priorities and strategies when it comes to making custom coins. Corporations are known to use them as gifts for employees, for retail sales or for fundraising. Companies like Alienware use them to promote their brand. No matter what the intention is for a set of company challenge coins, you can be sure that we will find the perfect balance between new design elements and a company’s classic branding.
