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Home > Military Challenge Coins - Bring Life Into Your Designs
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Military Challenge Coins - Bring Life into Your Designs by Adam Mulholland
Designing a challenge coin is not the easiest thing in the world, unless you like boring designs that no one wants to collect. There are several things you have to look for in a design such as uniqueness, color, shape, edging, 3D, thickness, and overall aesthetics. You don't have to go to school to be a coin designer but you do need somewhat of an artistic eye. When you have a 2" plate to cast your creativity on, well it better be worth it.
When you start a design you need to think of a theme. What do you want your coin to represent? Once you have that you can create the coin around the theme you chose. Color is going to be important so you need to choose the right metal to match you colors and your theme. Such as high-polished gold plating may not look good with gray enamel paint. Try different combinations out until you get something you like. Remember that some themes like licensed logos and artwork may need prior approval to use.
Other factors in a coin design are whether you have an odd shaped coin or a round one. Odd shaped coins are more times likely to be valuable and most hunted among the collecting community. It is vital your theme pieces match or compliment your shape. If the don't your coin will only be awkward at the least. Try being exotic in your coin shape instead of using the same thing everyone else has. If you're trying to make a living from being a coin designer you better make a large effort in being different.
The edging of a coin can be a flat diamond cut, which looks like a scalloped edge or a plain edge with nothing fancy on it. You can also choose a twisted diamond cut, double twisted diamond cut, or the jagged ridge. One new thing to hit challenge coins in 2007 is the money edge like the side of a quarter. Each of the edging techniques certainly adds class to a challenge coin but it's not for every coin you design. Choose wisely not to use a fancy edge on a plain Jane challenge coin.
The 3D option is crazy in some cases to make the images on your coin raise off the surface creating almost a sculpture. This technique is a bit more expensive but the pay off it worth more than words can say. Often 3D take a regular coin out of it and makes something so valuable that collector's will be knocking down your door for one. Make 3D available in your tools of the trade and you will be well rewarded in this addition. Sometimes you may be using an Eagle for example and 2D just makes it look like a pencil drawing with little to no detail. By adding 3D to that Eagle you can get detail in the feathers, shading, and most of all you can feel the entire sculpture.
Let's talk about epoxy use on a coin for a minute. We highly discourage the use of epoxy clear coating because it takes all the detail created and hides it from your finger tips. Challenge coins are meant to touch and show off. Why would you want to cover it all up? We advise all designers to stay away from epoxy at all cost.
Finally covering aesthetics and uniqueness since they go hand in hand you need to make sure you are putting out a product that can be appreciated but also admired. Why go through all the hard work if you are not going to get the rewards of designing it? You need to make sure you cover your bases of color matching, shape matching, theme matching (Air Force symbols with Marine logo is not matching), and proper dimensions. All these areas of design done right will give you the final goal of aesthetics, but the uniqueness comes from the designer. Each design has a trademark of some sort. Does the coin have a cutout, spin, move in anyway, have a secret code to it, or anything that is not normal on other coins will bring your design to the next level. Not every coin will have this but try to create one or two in your life as a designer.
To cover everything in designing a coin the most important thing to have is patience. There are times a design may not appear the first time or that you have to restart your design from scratch. A design will come when your imagination is performing at its peak. Nothing is worse than seeing the result of a bad design after it's been minted and hundreds or thousands of dollars have been wasted because of the pressure of getting the job done. Don't be a terrible designer! Make sure you get second opinions on your designs until you are designing on a professional level.
The author is a veteran collector and designer of Military Challenge Coin .net and leads the collecting hobby in information and guidelines. Adam Mulholland is Chief Designer of collectible coins for all branches of Armed Forces and Federal Agencies. Military Challenge Coin .net was established in 2004 as the main resource and information guide to military collecting. The collecting forum is one of the deepest rooting and active among the entire web.http://www.militarychallengecoin.net
About the Author
The author is a veteran collector and designer of Military Challenge Coin .net and leads the collecting hobby in information and guidelines. Adam Mulholland is Chief Designer of collectible coins for all branches of Armed Forces and Federal Agencies. Military Challenge Coin .net was established in 2004 as the main resource and information guide to military collecting. The collecting forum is one of the deepest rooting and active among the entire web.
http://www.militarychallengecoin.net
http://www.militarychallengecoin.net/forum
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