Custom Lanyards designs are important to consider for establishment of brand identity, expression of personal style and to celebrate special occasions as a team.
With a huge range of customisable designs, expressing your individual style has never been easier. With options such as full-colour designs, single-colour designs and a range of seasonal to more event-specific designs, your team can easily create individualised lanyards for any occasion.
In this article, we’ll guide you through how to use branding, logos, patterns and textures in order to design your custom lanyard. We’ll also run you through lanyard design ideas, including custom shapes, custom sizes and different styles you can choose from.
From inspirational quotes to cartoon characters and geometric designs, we’ll teach you how to design the perfect lanyard. We’ll discuss every form, including when it’s best to use minimalist designs and how to best utilise metallic accents.
Let’s get into it!
One of the most important things to consider when designing your custom lanyard involves understanding colour theory. Colours convey different emotions, elicit different responses and can carry multiple different connotations.
After reflecting on your brand and what message you want to convey, think about which colour best catches the eye and which lanyard colour options would best suit the message you’re trying to get across or which one represents your own brand.
If you’re presenting your brand, or using an existing logo, take a look at the Pantone colour, the standardised colouring system used in most designs. This will allow you to select the exact colour shade for your lanyard. We also offer a large range of colour designs, such as neon, pastel and metallic options, which all have the potential to catch your eye, and give different effects.
In order to catch people’s attention, take a look at popular colour trends, such as using two opposing colours or using ombre and colour blocking techniques.
When printing colours, it is important to factor in a bleed section. This is a buffer section that ensures that variations in cutting do not result in blank spots. It is important to extend the design around 3mm to ensure a bit of a buffer. Double sided printing, as offered as a standard on The Wristband Co’s. Lanyards also offer the best aesthetics when worn.
Brand colours, such as those used in your logo, or marketing, are the best way to seamlessly integrate your brand’s look into the lanyard design.
There are many ways you can do this, such as integrating a colour that your brand utilises with a more bold colour, or one on opposing sides of the colour wheel, to catch your eye. Other ways to do this is to use black backgrounds to accentuate other colours used in the lanyard. We can also add outlines to your text and images/logos; this ensures that they really stand out against the lanyard background, especially black backgrounds.
Some popular colour trends include colours such as Digital Lavender (a light purple), Viva Magenta (a vivid darker pink), warm Earth tones and neon colours.
Lanyards are one of the most visible and effective ways to create a brand identity. Lanyard branding is extremely important when creating brand representation.
Some things to think about include:
There are many ways you can use a lanyard for brand representation.
Consider adding a logo, including a tagline, or utilising slogan printing on the lanyard that is simple and recognisable to highlight your brand.
Some branding techniques are better than others when it comes to representing what your brand is about. Some techniques, such as heat-sublimation printing, allow you to clearly print logos and slogans on your lanyards.
Other techniques, such as embossed logos, can be used to create a more subtle logo placement that may work better for some brands.
Representing your brand on a lanyard is all about identifying what message you’re trying to get across. Is your brand all about maximum visibility with fun, playful colours, or is your brand about the art of subtlety?
These questions are useful to ask when it comes to creating designs that work with your band identity and help with effective lanyard branding. The Wristband Co. offers a free design service, so if you’re struggling to design your lanyards, get in touch and we would love to assist you.
Lanyards are used for a vast array of occasions: whether its conference lanyards, festival lanyards or wedding lanyards, all will require a slightly different approach when it comes to their design.
Firstly, think about the atmosphere at the event.
Festivals often call for colourful lanyards which can be clearly identified by attendees for example. Whilst simple and elegant lanyards can be used to subtly show who is working at a wedding function.
It is important to do some research into the event you are catering for and be inspired by the various themes, vibes and activities in order to select the right design elements for your lanyard.
Different colours, textures and fonts can be used to create appropriate and memorable custom event lanyards. Do some research into event themes, and other memorable landmarks and try to incorporate them, to make them memorable keepsakes for the event, for example.
Using both trendy and event-appropriate styles to create a lanyard will help to make your lanyards both functional and memorable.
Lanyards are great keepsakes, and are great reminders of past events. Using bright colours, metallic finishes and memorable logos where appropriate, help make your lanyards one for the memory box.
When it comes to the printing itself, it is important that the design’s complexity and highly detailed prints will negatively impact the outcome of the lanyards. Consider using larger prints for clearer images and ‘sharpness’.
Designing your lanyard with up-to-date lanyard customisation trends and incorporating creativity in your planning will help create memorable lanyards for your team or event.
There are some key questions to ask yourself, and some good research to undertake to achieve a trendy, yet on brand lanyard design.
Undertaking research into popular brands and looking on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest will help you to undertake important market research and find trending themes in contemporary lanyard design.
Trends such as minimalism, geometric patterns and 2000s-inspired fashion are all great sources of design inspiration.
When looking for inspiration in the fashion world, and contemporary art, think about how these trending elements can be incorporated in your lanyard design whilst using your existing brand logos, slogans and colours.
Can these things be adapted and blended together to design a modern yet recognisable take on your brand?
Online platforms such as Canva can help you design a lanyard that incorporates design elements from your brand. This allows you to get inspiration for a design, without necessarily having formal design experience.
Follow the steps below to design your lanyards in Canva:
Standing out from the crowd can be a great way to increase your brand visibility and create lanyards that are memorable whilst still being associated with the event you are designing the lanyard for years into the future.
Incorporating opposing colours, block text and metallic designs can be great ways to increase visibility and add a unique flare to your lanyard.
Designers and artists are all known for creating iconic lanyard designs. Top-level fashion brands such as Balenciaga are known for creating lanyards.
On the other hand, iconic art from Van Gough and Banksy has also been used to create recognisable lanyard designs.
These collaborations help to enhance creativity and are highly memorable.
If you’re going for recognisable, think about what iconic artistic images can be used to enhance your lanyard.
Whereas if you’re looking for contemporary designs, think about what designers align with your vision to help you create a modern design.
If you’re considering a collaboration- consider the various pros and cons. There are various benefits, such as increased visibility, expert design knowledge, and increased reach.
Charity collaborations are also a great way to raise funds for a charity that aligns with your vision.
There are some ways to ensure your collaboration is successful.
Think about brand priorities when meeting with a potential artist, discuss what message you want to convey, how much you’re ready to spend on the design, and any elements you want included in the design.
There may also be some legal issues you may want to look into, such as copyright, especially when collaborating with bigger brands.
Market trends have a huge influence on style, design and marketing in general.
Identifying current market trends when considering your lanyard personalisation is a great way to create innovative lanyard designs that are in fashion.
One of the key lanyard design trends centres around sustainability and eco-friendly designs.
Eco Friendly products are taking over the market and allow you to integrate unique designs, whilst still remaining contemporary. Whilst lanyards themselves are not biodegradable, they are made from 100% post-consumer polyester, also allowing them to be used again and again to promote sustainability.
Safety considerations such as inbuilt safety features are also important market trends you should be aware of. Safety breakaways are plastic clips that are added to the lanyard that detach when excessive force is applied. We recommend adding these if children under the age of 18 or vulnerable persons will be wearing the lanyards.
There are some simple ways to meet the evolving market designs. Consider using sustainable materials such as hemp and composable plastics when designing your lanyard, for example.
Small features such as safety breakaways are becoming expectations of lanyards and are simple additions to your design that are appealing to businesses where young and vulnerable wearers will be expected to wear the lanyards.
Some design elements, such as safety features, the use of sustainable materials and QR code integration, are becoming the norm and are now integrated into most lanyard designs. Whilst QR codes themselves are usually too detailed to be printed on the lanyard themselves, displays attached to the lanyard displaying QR codes are becoming much more common.
It is important to stay in the loop with lanyard market trends and design innovation to stay ahead of the game.
Lanyards offer great versatility and countless ways to express your brand. Identifying the message you want to get across, what to expect from the event you are designing for, and market brands are some essential steps to take in the planning phase.
Recognising these market trends, such as the use of sustainability-focused materials, collaborating with artists and charities and discussing various design options with your team will help you create a recognisable and memorable lanyard design.
Most importantly, have fun. Be inspired by the various colours, designs and logos you can use to create wearable art. Whether you’re a less-is-more kind of person or someone who thrives off colour and pushing the boundaries, you can create your own lanyard using our various colours, lectures, shapes and sizes right here that represent your brand/event perfectly.
What are you waiting for? Get creative! If you’re interested in how The WristbandCo. can help you achieve your goals, you can email at [email protected] or discuss your needs with one of the friendly staff at 08 8363 4850. And don’t forget – our lanyard design services are FREE.
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38 Little Rundle Street Kent Town SA 5067
08 8363 4850
ABN: 62 239 772 879
The Wristband Co. is located on the traditional lands for the Kaurna people, and we respect their spiritual relationship with their Country. We also acknowledge the Kaurna people as the custodians of the Adelaide region and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
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