Summary of Terminology
for Silicone Bracelets and Silicone ID tags.
Introduction The personalized silicone bracelet or custom silicone bracelet has become a powerful marketing tool. Custom Silicone ID Tags are similar in nature and offer another ID labeling option for Kids IDs, Medical Alert and Luggage Identification. They are popular with teens, children and adults. The silicone bracelets are used by sports teams to increase team spirit, to raise funds for schools.
Common Names These silicone bracelets are also commonly referred to as the personalized silicone wristband, custom silicone wristband, silicone bracelet, rubber wristband, silicone wristband, rubber bracelet, rubber bracelets, silicone rubber bracelets, charity bracelet, charity wristband, silicone bracelets, or silicone rubber wristbands. They are relatively inexpensive jewelry items that are colorful, durable and comfortable to wear.
Small Quantities Engraved and color filled medical alert and Kids IDs silicone bracelets and silicone ID Tags are the only way to get small quantities for individuals, families and sports events where each individual silicone bracelets and silicone ID Tag has a different message.
Specifications Our silicone bracelet specifications include 100% silicone including the color fill used to hand fill the debossed bracelet. We offer 4 sizes measured by the distance around the bracelet. The 6 inch band is called the Toddler silicone bracelet for kids that are at least 3 years old. The 7 inch bracelet is called the Youth silicone bracelet. The 8 inch bracelet is called the Adult silicone bracelet. Finally the 9 inch bracelet is called the XL for Extra Large silicone bracelet. We recently added five additional sizes covering the range from 5.5" to 10.5. We have now standardized on 20% thicker silicone wristbands (2.4mm Vs 2.0mm) for all new orders starting mid-year of 2006. A few extra wide silicone bracelets are in stock now to provide vertical room for more information. These can be seen on our inventory page. This design is 50% wider than regular bracelets (18mm Vs 12mm). The 18mm wide silicone bracelets are 2.0mm thick so that the wbracelet doesn't act like a rubber tire by combining both the thicker and wider features. The 50% more silicone and the 30% more silicone significantly adds to the strength of the silicone bracelets. The silicone ID Tags are 2.4mm thick for the regular GI Dog Tag and the large GI Dog Tag and 3mm thick for the larger silicone luggage Tags.
Design Guidelines There are several factors to consider when ordering silicone bracelets or silicone ID tags. The primary factors include size, color, quantity, availability, fonts, clip art, logos and location of text and graphics. Then consider if you want debossed, color filled debossed, embossed or screen printed. If you have the time (3 Weeks or so) you can get a better price if we order molded items factory direct for orders of at least 100 items of a given type, size and color. See our Samples and Proof Sheet page for examples. Silicone Wristbands and Silicone ID Tags are not toys and should not be used with children under the age of three.
Debossed The laser engraving process removes silicone material from the blank silicone bracelet or ID tag and therefore creates the debossed silicone bracelet look. Debossed simply means the text and graphics or clip art is indented into the silicone material. The opposite of this is the embossed text and graphics where the message is raised from the surface and can also be colored. This can only be done in the factory during the initial molding process. Engraving can only create the debossed look precisely removing the material. We use a CO2 laser engraver because of its flexibility to create almost any design using in stock blank silicone bracelets or silicone ID tags. The engraved silicone bracelet or silicone ID tag can be shipped as a traditional debossed item or we can hand fill the debossed message to create the color filled look. After hand filling in the debossed portion of the silicone bracelet or silicone ID Tag we further process the item to create a permanent bond to the original silicone. The higher cost to provide color filled text and graphics from in stock items is driven by the labor intensity of the process.
Debossed is indented. Laser engravers can only deboss a blank silicone bracelet. Embossed is raised and this can only be done at the time of the original molding of the silicone wristband or the silicone ID Tag. Screen Printing is a process where a thin layer of ink or paint is placed on to the silicone bracelet or silicone ID Tag by using a standard screen printing process. Debossed silicone bracelets can have the indented portion of the text and graphics hand filled with ink or paint and then further processed to create a permanent bond to the original silicone bracelet. Molded silicone bracelets are done in the factory where the text and graphics are either debossed or embossed into the mold before the silicone material is inserted. Both the debossed type and the embossed type can have a different color for the text and graphics.
Molded Factory Direct If you have the time to wait (3 weeks or more) for factory molded silicone bracelets of silicone ID tags, significant cost savings can be realized. The factory molding and screen printing process is set up for very large quantities but we can order as few as a 100 minimum order at a time of any size and color combination. Mix and match with molded factory orders is only good for colors in increments of 100 items each. A new mold is needed for different messages or for different sizes and this starts the pricing scale all over again. Economies of scale prevail in both the molded and the engraved processes.
Screen Printing Screen printing offers more options for colors and detailed designs but suffers in the durability category because the screen printing places a thin layer of ink (silicone Ink) or paint (soft enamel) onto the surface which can be worn off in just a few weeks of continuous usage. With one exception, we do not do screen printing of in stock items because of this and will only order screen printed silicone bracelets or silicone ID Tags if the customer requests it for events where extended wear is not an issue. Our pricing for molded factory direct orders is the same for debossed, embossed or for screen printing.
Durability The most durable type of silicone bracelet or silicone ID tag is the debossed type followed closely with the color filled debossed type which can be done with a laser engraver or molded into the silicone bracelet at the factory. Thicker bracelets are also an improvement in durability and we have now standardized on 20% thicker silicone bracelets for all new orders starting mid-year of 2006. The embossed type is also good for durability but must be molded in the factory at production time which requires minimum orders and longer lead times.
Quality The quality of the molded silicone bracelets or silicone ID Tags that we order from the factory is exceptional and recommended if you have the time to wait for the product (3 weeks +) and need at least 100 items with a single set of messages and logos on a single size of product (a single mold). The quality of the engraved products is very good and serves the needs for orders for less than 100 items, less than 3 weeks delivery, more of the mix and match of sizes and colors and messages or up to 4 messages to apply.
Fonts Initially we offered over 4,000 fonts but Microsoft Windows XP only allows 1,000 fonts to be installed at a time so we have selected 45 of the most requested fonts as a standard offering. If you have a special true type font for us to use, we may be able to fine it or you can send us the .TTF file to use for your order.
Font Differences Not all fonts are created equal. Each font takes up its own amount of space per character for a given point size in relation to other fonts. Some fonts work fine in both ALL CAPS and CAPS & Lower Case applications. Others do not look good in ALL CAPS. The big, deep and bold fonts used better for debossed only applications are: Arial Bold, Bookman OLd, Broadway, Forte, Rockwell Extra, Stencil and especially Impact. The fonts that do not look good in All CAPS are: Amazone, Magneto, Marura, Old English, Page, Script, Script Bold, and Tango. The script fonts are: Amazone, Bradly, Corsva, Forte, Freehand, Gigi, Magneto, Missy, Page, Script, Script 2 and Script Bold. We offer 9 Greek fonts and the letter by letter comparison is available in the font selection tables we provide.
Big and Bold The initial silicone bracelet design was debossed only which limits the selection of fonts because the readability of the text and graphics relied on casting a shadow to see the message. Therefore the messages tended to be big, bold, deep and limited on character count. Also the casing of a shadow does not work as well on dark colors as compared to light colors. Color filling removes this limitation by creating a contrasting color for the text and graphics allowing for much more readable information to be displayed on each side of the silicone bracelet or silicone ID Tag.
Clip Art We offer several thousand clip art graphics to choose from and added a favorites section in the beginning of the clip art section to minimize the time to find the most frequently used clip art graphics. Our Medical Alert option now has clip art choices that are also shown on our favorites section page.
Messages What's in a message anyway? For the purpose of our engraving and molding processes a message is any combination of text and graphics including logos that will fit on one half of a silicone bracelet or one side of a silicone ID Tag. If you take a given silicone bracelet and spread it out between two fingers it divides into two halves (the Front Half and the Back half). If you turn the silicone bracelet inside out and do the same thing you now have two more halves to work with called the inside back and the inside front. Therefore there are actually 4 messages that can be placed in these silicone bracelets (2 for the silicone ID tags).
Message Identification The 4 messages are then referred to as follows: Front Message, Back Message, Inside Front Message and Inside Back Message. Each message requires a software setup and separate engraving or mold design so our pricing reflects this requirement. Engraving on both the outside and the inside requires that the silicone bracelets be re-placed on the mounting boards and re-aligned and kept in the same order so that the messages don't get mixed up with other orders. Color filling the inside and the outside is more complicated also.
Text Limitations The text character limitation is simply related to how small of a text can you read which determines how much text information you can place on one half of a silicone wristband or one side of a silicone ID Tag. Each font takes up its own amount of space in relation to other fonts so counting the number of characters allowed is not completely accurate because of this relationship to font types. As a general guideline using and Arial Font for the XL size for 24 point, 16 point and 11 point fonts you can get 20, 32, and two rows of 45 characters respectively on halve of the silicone wristband. For the Adult size for 24 point, 16 point and 11 point fonts you can get 18, 28, and two rows of 40 characters respectively on halve of the silicone wristband. For the Youth size for 24 point, 16 point and 11 point fonts you can get 16, 24, and two rows of 35 characters respectively on halve of the silicone wristband. For the Toddler size for 24 point, 16 point and 11 point fonts you can get 14, 20, and two rows of 30 characters respectively on halve of the silicone wristband. The smallest readable font size is 10 points for a simple easy to read font such as Arial or Comic Sans. We use one program that is strictly limited to these various font size increments and we use another that allows us to stretch or shrink as needed.
Text Colors The text colors we offer are basic Red, White, Blue, Yellow, Black and Gold. We can make variations of these colors upon request. Examples of variations are Dark Blue, Light Blue, Pink, Dark Red, and Gray. Mixing these colors to get variations is not precise so differences in results may occur.
Colors The silicone bracelet colors that are in stock can be seen in our colors page and the amount of each color that is in stock can be found in our inventory page. We can order molded silicone bracelets from the factory for quantities of 100 or more and then choose from a very long list of Pantone Colors that have a PMS ### designation. It is our experience that these web site displays of PMS Colors are not accurate due to the differences in computer monitor qualities and monitor age and also differences in computer printer qualities. The only way we could get a good repeatable PMS color chosen and delivered was to purchase a Pantone PMS fan chart also called a Pantone Color Bridge that has these colors and associated PMS numbers printed on durable paper strips or plastic strips. Note that PMS 205, PMS 205M and PMS 205C are all the same color. The M stands for matted Pantone Samples and the C stands for coated Pantone Samples. You can find a paper or plastic Pantone fan chart (Pantone Color Bridge) buy using the following web site link:
www.digitalgraphicsresources.com
You can also find PMS colors displayed on the following web site links with down-loadable PDF files of the charts:
http://www.pantone.com/downloads/inkjetsolutions/downloads/pdfs/ColorChart.pdf
www.agenity.com/sitemanager/uploads/documents/117/PMS%20Color%20Chart.pdf
www.indigoclothing.com/help/index.php?_m=downloads&_a=downloadfile&downloaditemid=7 -
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