challenge coin design

How to Design Challenge Coins

November 26, 2018 By PNR 7 Comments

So you want to Design a Challenge Coin?

Challenge coins are meant to mean something to the person that’s handing them out and to the person that is receiving them. At Pitch and Rudder, we are dedicated to fostering that emotional connection. So when your designing a challenge coin, that’s where it starts. What is it supposed to mean when you palm someone YOUR Challenge coin? Your Challenge coin could be for your Unit, Division or company but the bottom line is that its being designed by you. You’re designing a challenging coin, so you get to decide what that feeling should be. Now lets not get you spooled up on having to actually draw up the design, we have a team here to make your vision a reality. You give us the concept, what your trying to convey with the coin and our team of experts will design a challenge coin that meets all of your hearts needs!

Designing a challenge coin, the Art.

Once we have the general meaning of your coin laid out, now its time to fine tune what your challenge coin design should look like. First and foremost, this is YOUR challenge coin, so stay away from all the clipart and flash. That’s not a custom challenge coin, that’s a standard challenge coin and with your coin, your going to want something special from the start. Pick a company that has actual graphic designers not just photo-shop wizards.

How to Design a Challenge Coin Tips and Tricks

Now that we have the basics completed, lets take a look at the bigger picture items, are you wanting your coin to be more traditional or big and bold? A mixture of both? Pay attention to the size of fonts and the type of font used. Script font is hard to read no matter what size it is and should be avoided unless it can be used rather large to highlight something special.

3D or 2D? We just covered this topic in an earlier post, using a mixture of both elements can really capture the message that you’re looking for.
Size? How big are you looking to make your challenge coin? The average challenge coins size is 1.75 inches; however, that size is increasing every year. Are you looking to make something that you can palm someone and that they can carry or are you looking to make something that they need to leave on their desk? Deciding this direction early is a must when designing a challenge coin because everything else hangs in the balance.
Color? There are many different ways to add a touch of color to your challenge coins you can use standard color, lucent color or 3D color. Furthermore, you can also change the entire hue of your coin by changing the metal plating. For instance, if your looking to design a challenge coin with a rich wood background, plating the coin silver first is a mistake. It causes the wool grain to be dark and somewhat dirty in color; whereas, if you plate the coin in a gold metal first the lucent brown paint will make your challenge coin design look more warm and real.

So, what happens to those that don’t know all these tips or tricks when they set out to design a challenge coin, be it their first or 15^th coin in production. Well when they are working with Pitch and Rudder; nothing, our design team works fluidly with you, not only assisting you in designing your coin, but also in educating you in why we recommend doing this a certain way.

When designing a challenge coin, experience counts!

In our community if you’re not pressing the boundaries your being left behind. It was that way when our team was in the Military why would we change our behavior when we started a company? Pitch and Rudder is constantly pushing the envelope in designing challenging coins and we can take our experience to help give your vision to life.

Are you looking at designing a coin with a bottle opener attached or cut out? Don’t worry we have designed both.

Are you looking at designing a coin with a golf ball marker? Well how big would you like them? We’ve made markers shaped as bombs, Command Master Chief Pins, circles and oh this one time we made a 3d Coffee cup.

What about puzzle coins? Oh we did those as well, do you want it with magnets or no magnets? Dragons or no Dragons?

The point is, if you can think it, we can help you implement it into your design. We are here to help, because as much as we enjoy designing challenge coins, we collect them even more!

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Pitch and Rudder Services

Making custom quality challenge coins and Military belt buckles are one of our specialties. If you’re interested in getting a designing a custom buckle or Quality Challenge coin for your Division, Command, or Mess we’ve streamlined the process, click the get started link at the bottom of the page and someone from our design team will be with you within 48 hours to bring your vision to life.

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About the Author, Terry Maynard, Former CEO and Principle Owner of Pitch and Rudder LLC

Terry is a 22-year Veteran of the United States Navy, a Retired Senior Chief and a loving husband with four children. With 5 years’ experience designing, manufacturing and marketing challenge coins under his belt, it’s easy to see how his experience could help other hone their craft.

How expensive are Quality Custom Challenge coins? Tips on Keeping your Project under budget in 2019

November 25, 2018 By PNR 3 Comments

Quality Custom Challenge Coins should be your #1 target!

Let me say that again, Quality should be your 1st target, your order should never compromise on the standard of the Custom Challenge Coin. Period

If you’re on a restricted budget or simply trying to keep the price down on your challenge coins, don’t sweat it. we’ve a couple of helpful tips that may save you cash and acquire you the high-quality coins you would like. Take a look at this article on designing awesome Challenge coins.

Getting the foremost bang for your buck starts with the unit price. Unit price is the cost of every individual coin in a full order. how much every coin costs depends on a variety of various factors like color, size, edging, planting, sn and myriad alternative customizable options. The more complicated a coin is, the costlier it’ll be.

The best ways that to keep the unit price down, and acquire the foremost coins for your cash, is to concentrate on size, colors, and quantity.

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Size of Quality Custom Challenge Coins

Bigger coins can cost more cash. They need larger molds and a lot of material so that they are going to be inherently costlier. If you’re trying to induce the foremost coins for your money, smaller sized coins can forever be the way to go. Take this for an example:

Let say you were trying to order five hundred challenge coins with color on each side. Sizes vary from 1.5” all the way up to as massive as you’ll be able to imagine, and you opt that 3.5” is ideal. The unit worth for a 3.5” coin with color on each side is $7.29, thus five hundred coins can start up to a complete of $3645

Bear with me now, we all know it’s loads of numbers. By obtaining 2.5” coins in place of the 3.5” coins, you may save over $800 on this order. Those varieties of savings will help meet any reasonable budget! however, let’s take the instance simply a touch more. Let’s say your take into account this five hundred coin project is $4,000. you have got plenty to cover the value of the 3.5” coins. Now, the dimensions of your coins play a role in what proportion you’re obtaining for your cash.

For the selected $3,645, you’ll be able to have your five hundred coins at 3.5”. however, if you opt to take an inch off your coins and acquire a 2.5” style instead, you’ll be able to order 1,000 coins for simply a meagerly $405 more. meaning doubling the number of coins you receive for simply just a bit more money. Regardless of how you spin it, deciding what size coin to induce is wherever you’ll be able to realize ways that to satisfy any budget and acquire the foremost for your cash.

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The Quantity of Quality Custom Challenge Coins

Alight, buckle up as a result of there are some a lot of numbers during this section. But first, let’s bring up coin molds. coming up with a custom coin may be a heap of fun. You get to throw your concepts around and see however they flesh out. You get to travel through revisions creating design good. And after you finally get to carry the primary coin, you recognize it’s a real original. However, a custom coin desires a custom mold. mold fees cover testing the setup of the coin and therefore the development of a unique mold. It will cost anyplace between $50 and $250 reckoning on the dimensions of the coins and whether or not or not they’re one-sided or two-sided in style. this is often wherever amount comes into play. For orders of five hundred coins or a lot of, we tend to eliminate mold fees! this suggests that each one of your cash goes towards coins, and not towards set up! additionally, the unit worth of challenge coins drops exponentially with the rise of order amount, therefore a lot of you order the less you’re paying for every coin.

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Color of Quality Custom Challenge Coins

Color is an alternative choice that contains a vital impact on the unit price of coins. It takes additional time to line up a mold that has clearly outlined breaks for color patterns, making certain that no colors bleed together. The paint itself adds up, too. If you scrutinize one coin, it doesn’t appear as if it takes that a lot of paint, however, keep in mind, multiply the paint from one coin by three hundred or five hundred or however massive the order is. That’s loads of paint.

So, selecting to avoid color fills can prevent cash. How much, you ask? Well, let’s recall at the instance from above: you are obtaining five hundred coins with color on each side for a complete of $2,645. By eliminating the color fills and obtaining bare-metal coins, you may save nearly $700! You save $1.35 on each coin. during this example, eliminating color fills saves simply over 25th on the full order.

Custom Navy Chief Challenge coin manufactured by Pitch and Rudder

So before you Order your Challenge Coins:

When you begin the ordering method by requesting a design, take an instant to speak with a member of our sales team. provide them with your budget and that they can realize the simplest choices to satisfy your desires. obtaining smaller coins will save loads of cash on the lowest line, however, perhaps you actually want a 2.5” coin and can’t fathom the way to create that fits your budget.

Our sales team is friendly and jam-packed with expertise. they’re going to do everything in their power to help produce a coin that suits your desires (both in style and budget). inspect size comparisons and custom choices on our evaluation page, and acquire an improved plan of what we are able to produce for you. Our expertise has taught us that there’s some flexibility that permits our customers to avoid wasting cash while not sacrificing high-quality style. Just remember, Size, Qty, and Colors and let us get to creating you an Awesome Quality Custom Challenge Coin!

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Pitch and Rudder Services

Making custom quality challenge coins and Military belt buckles are one of our specialties. If your interested in getting a Custom buckle or Quality Challenge coin for your Division, Command, or Mess we’ve streamlined the process, click the get started link at the bottom of the page and someone from our design team will be with you within 48 hours to bring your vision to life.

2D Challenge Coins vs 3D Challenge Coins

November 25, 2018 By PNR Leave a Comment

Custom Challenge Coins Whats the real Difference?

Customers typically ask us what the difference is between 2d challenge coins and 3D challenge coins. we tend to understand this could be a bit confusing. Die struck custom challenge coins of each sort have raised and recessed areas. The distinction is that 2d challenge coins primarily have 2 levels of metal. The 3D challenge coins have a vast variety of levels. meaning we will spherical edges and make smooth gradations between the raised and recessed areas. within the photo higher than, all text and brand work on the right challenge coin is on an identical plane. The bottom coin (3D challenge coins option), has multiple planes and creates what we tend to check with as a 3D challenge coin mold. The 3D challenge coins Concept works nicely for buildings, statues, pictures of individuals, and alternative objects that are 3D in the world — that is to mention everything in real life!

So it might appear that 3D challenge coins would be the way to go, right? Not always. one of the reasons for a project to use to a second style would be for color. due to the method by that, we tend to produce the 3D challenge coins mold, it’s usually unfeasible for us to paint or fill any a part of the 3D image. The 3D portion of the challenge coins will have to stay within the finished metal kind of your selecting. we will simply add color to a second style, and that we offer to 7 colors free. We can, however, produce 3D pictures that have color fill around them on alternative elements of the coin’s surface. we love the creativeness and individuation that 3D challenge coins give, and love making an enduring product that shows your message and imagination in an exceedingly quality custom coin. we tend to manufacture each second and 3D challenge coins you’ll be proud to hold, distribute and show. allow us to apprehend if you have got any queries the least bit concerning the 3D method and what we will do for you!

Pitch and Rudder Services

If your interested in Rocking a One of a Kind Design, built from a Veteran Owned and Operated team we’ve have made it easier than ever to #gocustom with us! Click the Link, fill out the form and let’s Get started rocking something custom for you that sets you apart from the crowd. Take a look at our Services and let’s match a designer to your needs and knock your project out of the park!

Part II Getting to know your Pitch and Rudder Team

November 6, 2018 By PNR 1 Comment

(Former Owner) A little about our Founder and Principle Owner here at Pitch and Rudder LLC

Pitch and Rudder was established off of a simple want, the Maynard family had just came off of an arduous sea tour and wanted to reconnect and spend some time together as a family at the greatest place on earth! Disney!! So for a year before we actually established the LLC, Terry designed and manufactured one custom military challenge coin a month through the different coin pages to take his Family to Orlando once a month. These were simple designs and nothing crazy, then in June of 16 a few commands reached out and asked if Terry could design and make their Chief Mess Season challenge coins and the rest is history.

AECS(AW) Terry Maynard, (Ret)

AECS Maynard was born in Fresno, CA in November of 1979. He enlisted in the Navy in July of 1997 and completed boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes. He then reported to Aviation Electricians ‘A’ School in Pensacola Fl. In May of 98 he reported to Patrol Squadron TWO SIX in Brunswick, ME. After three deployments with the Tridents and advancing to AE3, Senior Chief transferred to the Pioneers of VX-1 in Patuxent River MD. It was during this tour that he met the love of his life Ashley and they were Married at Solomon’s Island, advanced to AE2 and ran the night shift electrical shop. An old Crusty AE1 took him under his wing and gave him a bit of rudder, “I’m glad you can fix planes….. but when are you going to learn how to lead?” Senior took the message to heart. After Completing his rewarding first shore tour, he transferred to the Skinny Dragons of Patrol squadron FOUR. This tour, is when he realized that we wanted to be Chief Petty Officer. Completing two deployments with Skinny Dragons, one to 5^th fleet and one to 7^th fleet he Selected as VP-4s Junior Sailor of the Year and Advanced to AE1. Even with the career millstones that were being accomplished while being stationed in Hawaii, the highlight of that tour was the birth of their first son Garrett. After a very rewarding tour he transferred once again to Patuxent River, MD this time to Force Warfare, VX-20. Once onboard, he was tagged to run QA as the Division LPO and that first year aboard he was selected as Senior Sailor of the Year, and again designated SFF, this time on all 22 platforms and in 2010 he was floored to be selected as A Chief Petty officer. The Maynard Family grew as well! Their Second and third Sons were born, Kellan and Landon. When they entered the state as a family of three, three years earlier, now on their transition to VQ-3 they now were a family of Five! Joining the Ironman Family of VQ-3, was an eye-opening experience, while apart of this command, Senior ran Night Check Maintenance and was the Aircraft Division LCPO. It was during this tour that Emmalyn was born their one and only Princess! Once his tour was completed his family now six strong moved to the land of storms and sunshine in Jacksonville, FL to be a part of Patrol Squadron THIRTY!

While attached to the PROs NEST Senior made some lifelong friends, Founded Pitch and Rudder LLC, advanced to Senior Chief and spent 83 days at Disney! While assigned to VP-30 he was the Maintenance Supervisor, Line Division LCPO and Maintenance Training LCPO. From VP-30, the move was a long and arduous one to hangar 511 and the Red Lancers of Patrol Squadron TEN where he finished out his career as the AV/ARM Division LCPO. AECS Maynard (Ret) has received Two Navy Commendation Medals, Seven Navy Achievement Medals, Six Good Conduct Medals, National Defense Service Medals, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals, Kosovo Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, two Iraqi Campaign Medals, Military Outstanding Service Medal, two Humanitarian service medals, and the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary and Service Medals as well as numerous command achievements and awards.

Now that we know who he is and a little about his history, lets address what he does here at Pitch and Rudder. (Update: As of end of 2021 Terry sold all his ownership in P&R to Jason Eland.)

Principle Owner

This is a broad title that pretty much encompasses the lion king metaphor, everything the sun touches is his. Daily he works with our fulfillment team in Jacksonville to make sure that our orders are getting out as required. Coordinates the inventory allocations and manages our social media platforms. When a new product is placed on the site, hes made all the changes to the back end system of the website to ensure that it runs smoothly, uploads the product, writes the SEO content and publishes the final product. If he’s not on the computer working on a system, he’s on a zoom call working a collaboration or a business venture. Advertising and Marketing, all of our plans have been developed through him. Our new Chatbot, Pitch? Yep, Terry built it from the ground up. Do you enjoy our emails? He builds those well. He is always looking for new ways to make Pitch and Rudder more effective and easier for the customer to find and utilize.

Custom Military Challenge Coin Designer

When Terry isn’t working on the metrics of the business, he’s in the trenches designing some really badass Custom military challenge coins! All of Pitch and Rudders Custom designed Military Challenge Coins are finalized and approved by Terry before leaving the company and going to the customer. This helps keep all of Pitch and Rudders military Challenge Coins looking the same even though the were designed by a team of five. Some of the coolest military challenge coins that he has designed are located here in our Gallery of Coins; however, here are some of his favorites! Terry focuses on the emotional connection someone should have when they are palmed one of your military challenge coins. The design has to be on point and if you can convey a connection with a coin; than, to the company it’s a slam dunk! We do a lot of military challenge coins, custom buckles and kick ass lapel pins each week and month; its the pride in the design and commitment to our values that sets us apart from the flock.

Coined

It’s that emotional connection that Terry wants to foster that got him to establish the Facebook group Coined. It’s not about trading or selling Military Challenge coins, its about the stories behind the coin that make so awesome. You can Check out the facebook group, add your favorite coin picture and talk to a ton of like minded individuals! Look for a new PODcast to be started in the coming weeks where we can highlight more of the personal stories behind the military challenge coin…. in Coined!

https://www.facebook.com/PitchandRudder/videos/1216999288474250/

A Deeper Look

For a deeper look at Terry, Pitch and Rudders, Founder check out the following PODcast that he has been interviewed on:

#GOCUSTOM

If your interested in Rocking a One of a Kind Design, built from a Veteran founded team we’ve have made it easier than ever to #gocustom with us! Click the Link, fill out the form and let’s Get started rocking something custom for you that sets you apart from the crowd. Take a look at our Services and lets match a designer to your needs and knock your project out of the park!