Part Decoration

Decorating Techniques

Manufacturing a part often involves the application of accent trim, product labels, logos, end-user directions, warning labels, recycling codes, and other decorations. These can be applied through a single printing pass or a series of secondary manufacturing operations. We've described the most common ways that parts are decorated below.​

Hot Stamping

Wood-grained, pigmented, or metallic designs are sandwiched between special coatings on a release carrier tape. ​

The designs are transferred to the surface of the part via a heated die, which presses against the tape before stamping the part.​

Laser Etching

A laser engraving machine removes material from the surface of an object, leaving a marking in the shape of a textual or graphical design.​

​When the laser contacts the material’s surface, high heat causes the surface material to melt and raise slightly.​

Pad Printing

A silicone rubber pad is used to transfer an inked image from an engraved plate, known as a cliché, to a part. The process can involve one or more colors and be applied to flat, cylindrical, and even irregularly-shaped parts. Lightly textured plastic parts and parts exhibiting some sink marks are still compatible with pad printing.​

Silk Screening

A selectively permeable screen deposits an inked image onto a plastic part. A relatively inexpensive process, silk screening yields a high-quality printed image. ​

​Registration (aligning separate layers), especially when it comes to intricate designs, can pose a problem, however. That's why silk-screened images are usually limited to two colors.​