Badges & Labels
Badges made to your own artwork in four constructions, applied to the garments we supply or sent to you loose.
The four badge types
Thermoplastic polyurethane, formed under high-frequency moulding. TPU holds the finest detail and cleanest edges of the four, and carries several emboss heights in one badge for a properly three-dimensional finish. It stays flexible and shrugs off washing.
Best for detailed crests, fine lettering and anything where definition matters — teamwear, football shirts and corporate uniform.
Raised silicone with smooth edges and clean, solid shapes. It gives much the same modern, dimensional look as TPU but stays noticeably softer against the fabric — it flexes and stretches with the garment rather than fighting it, and resists washing and daily wear.
Best for performance kit and stretch fabrics — training tops, football shirts, gym wear and anything worn close to the skin.
Thick, solid and unmistakably robust. Rubber takes bold shapes and strong edges, and gives a badge real physical presence. Of the four it stands up best to abrasion and repeated heavy laundering, which is why it earns its place on kit that gets a hard life.
Best for workwear and heavy-duty uniform, club crests, and neck labels or hem tags in place of a printed label.
A traditional embroidered patch, stitched as a badge in its own right and then applied. You get the texture and depth of real embroidery, with cleaner placement than stitching onto a finished garment — and no needlework through technical fabrics.
Best for a heritage or classic look — blazers, caps, jackets, schoolwear and anything where a stitched finish is expected.
Choosing between them
All four will carry your logo well. The differences show up in how the badge feels in the hand and in what it has to survive.
- Fine detail, small lettering or layered depth. TPU, which reproduces sharper edges than the others.
- Stretch fabric, or worn next to the skin. Silicone, for its soft handle and its give.
- Industrial laundering and heavy daily wear. Rubber, the thickest and most abrasion resistant of the four.
- A classic, textile look. Embroidered, for traditional stitched texture.
If you are not sure, send the artwork over and tell us what the garment has to put up with. We will tell you which construction we would use, and why.
Labels
Woven and printed labels for necks, hems and side seams, along with care labels and composition labels for garments going into your own production. If you are building your own clothing range or relabelling stock under your own brand, this is the piece that makes it look like yours rather than someone else's.
Why a badge instead of decorating the garment directly
There are several situations where a badge is the better answer, and it is worth knowing them:
- Detail at small scale. A moulded TPU badge will hold fine lettering and intricate crests that direct embroidery would lose.
- Difficult garments. Some items cannot be hooped or reached with a standard machine, and a finished badge sidesteps the problem entirely.
- Technical and lined fabrics. A heat-applied badge brands a waterproof or a padded jacket without putting needle holes through it.
- Consistency across mixed garments. One badge applied across a range of different fabrics gives an identical result on all of them, where direct decoration would vary slightly from fabric to fabric.
- Changeable branding. Useful where a name, a rank or a season changes but the garment does not.
Artwork and setup
Vector artwork — AI, EPS or PDF — gives the cleanest edges and the truest colours, but send whatever you have and we will work from it. As with embroidery, there is a one-off setup to convert your design into a production file, and it is held on file afterwards so repeat orders skip that step.
TPU badges are moulded, so a new design also carries a one-off tooling charge. It is a cost that pays for itself over repeat runs of the same badge, and any setup charges are set out in your quote before you commit to anything.
You will see a proof, and on bespoke runs a physical sample, before anything is produced in quantity.
Minimum quantities
Minimum order quantities apply and vary depending on the type of badge or label and how it is being made. Tell us the design, the quantity you have in mind and what it is going onto, and we will confirm the minimum and the price together.
Where badges and labels are used
Send your design and quantities through the quote form and we will confirm the best construction, the minimum quantity and the cost within one working day.
Get a quote