Small Decision, Big Results
Let’s say you’re ordering a round, medallion-shaped, coin that just so happens to have a rather text-heavy design. Not only do you have to decide on what images you want to pair with the text, you also have to choose certain design options that will allow for your text to remain legible. But did you know there’s one more consideration to make as well: Which direction your text remains oriented in?
For the majority of our coins, in particular coins at either end of the text spectrum (either only a couple words, or an entire side saturated with text), the text remains oriented to the “bottom” of the coin. This way, all of the text remains legible when the coin is held “right side up.” However, that isn’t your only option. Indeed, coins somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, for example coins designed with just enough text to go around the edge of the coin, look better when all of the text is oriented towards the center. Here’s some quick and easy design advice to help you figure out how best to orient the text on your coin.
How Much Text Is There?
The first thing you have to worry about when making this decision is how much text is on your coin? If you’re working with an exceptionally text-heavy design, then you’re more likely to want to keep all of the text moving in the same direction.
It’s so much easier to keep the coin legible if all of the text is oriented to the bottom of the coin. And it stops people from needing to turn the coin in hand to read each word. Moreover, when there’s that much text on a coin, it’s just not really as feasible to create the text in any other fashion. So if you look at the amount of text being included in your coin design, and it’s somewhere in the realm of the coin above, simply orient all of the text in the same direction and call it a day.
However, if you’re looking to add a small amount of text to your coin, exactly enough to go around the edge for example, then you’ll want to consider an orientation where all of the text faces the center of the coin.
Being Consistent
Here in the Signature Coins office, our sales and art teams come down pretty strongly in favor of text around the edge of the coin having a center-facing orientation. What that means is that the “top” of all of the text on the edge of the coin will point towards the outside edge of the coin, while the “bottom” of all the letters will point towards the center of the coin.
As you can see, this means that the words on the “bottom” of the coin will be upside down when the coin is held upright. However, while we certainly think that this presents the best option for certain challenge coin designs, the primary thought process around the office is that being consistent in your text orientation is the best way to go.
The text orientation on your coin is inconsistent when some of the words are oriented towards the center of the coin while one or more are oriented to the bottom of the coin. So on the coin above, the words “Red Cloud,” “Tomahawk I” and “Tomahawk II” are all oriented to the center of the coin, but the word “Warrior” is oriented to the bottom of the coin. While this means the coin is legible when held upright, it also makes “Warrior” look wrong. As your eyes scan down the coin, the orientation of the other three phrases makes you think that the fourth word should point in the same direction as the others. But when that isn’t the case, something can look a little off about your coin. And round coins aren’t the only ones that run into this problem.
Conversely, when the orientation of your coins is consistent, it makes them look cleaner and the design more purposeful. Whether the text orientation is consistently towards the center of the coin, or if it’s all oriented towards the bottom. Being consistent is the better option.
So, while we’re more likely to suggest that you keep the text on your coin oriented towards the center (assuming you have the proper amount of text to make that work), at the end of the day, the main thing we recommend is that you stay consistent with the direction your text is oriented. If you’re designing a coin with just enough text for the top and the bottom edges, then keep it all oriented to the bottom of the coin. But if you’re running text all along the outside edge of the coin, consider whether or not orienting the text towards the center of the coin isn’t the better option.