Bonjour!
Did you know? The Kickstarter to create my enamel pins was a real success! I was funded and the pins are now coming to life. I want now to take you with me into the creation process of an hard enamel pin.
Getting your idea for the pin.
This is I guess the first step to think about, what to make as a pin? For my case I can’t really remember how the cat mask idea came about. I think it was a mix of the japanese mask stickers set I had just made and also the fact cats are just adorable.
I first sketched my ideas but also started talking about it around me.
I think at that time I wasn’t really sure I wanted to do a Kickstarter but when you do a product you have to talk about it and I like sharing the process. Like I am doing now!
Creating the enamel pins design for manufacturing.
Manufacturing a design into pins require various constraints. You have to create a vector file, decide on the colors, mind the gap between each lines to allow the enamel to be poured.
Deciding ont he colors was the easy part. Once the design picked I just cleaned it up and added some colors to have an idea of how it could look like. I even did a few propositions and asked my followers what colors they liked best.
Once the design is sure and settled I put the design in to vectors. I used Adobe Illustrator to do so as it is the software I am the most confortable with. Manufacturer only take vectors files as it is easier for them to cut the design into parts to create the product.
I also need to say that I knew nothing on enamel pins but the internet being the awesome place it is, I found a lot of advice and guidelines on how to make enamel pins. A special thank you to The pink samurai and Pin Lord both offer very clear and simple help to create your own enamel pins.
There ressources helped me get my file ready to send to the manufacturer. At that time I had already started my Kickstarter. But since pin production took a lot of time and I had enough fund for 1 pin I send it to production ahead of time. I was also curious of how the production would go and if the pin would turn out great.
Finding a good pins manufacturer.
Finding a manufacturer was easy, there is so much manufacturer on Alibaba and when you start talking about enamel pins on Instagram or Kickstarter they just send you direct messages to propose their services. But I was not confident to trust the creation of my enamel pins to some random manufacturer.
It was my first pin after all. You want some trust!
Luckily there is a place to find a good manufacturer (didn’t I told you the internet was a great place?) There is a Facebook group of pin creators that give advice and helps each other with all the manufacturing issues and success. I found a well graded manufacturer there and started the collaboration.
The production of enamel pins.
Honestly there isn’t much you can do at this step aside from waiting for the updates, or asking for updates on the production. For my pins it took around a month shipping included. In the end it was quite fast.
In the meantime the Kickstarter got funded, I got to celebrate a little and a few days later here they were:
I am very glad about the result, they are all of very good quality and so far I haven’t seen any defect in any of them. It could happen sometimes but I guess I got lucky and picked a good manufacturer?
Enjoy!
I dearly enjoyed creating enamel pins. I love having my design coming to life in a physical form. How better than creating a collectible!
Now that the Kickstarter is funded I will go on and ask for the production of the second design. And I’m quite sure I’m not going to stop here! So let’s see go creating new enamel pins designs!
I hope you enjoyed this little experience, there is still a few pins left on my Etsy shop. You can pre-order it from here. You can also check out more details from my video here:
See you soon!
