Ribbon Resources

See also: Stock Ribbons and Ribbon Gallery

1. You don't have to order your ribbons through me.

www.marcopromos.com (ribbons/badge ribbons)
www.hodgesbadge.com (flat ribbons)
www.ribbonsgalore.com (badge/badge ribbons)
www.shopforawards.com (nametags)
www.larsensawardribbons.com (flat ribbons)
www.pcnametag.com (ribbons)
www.speedyawards.com (ribbons - pinked, vertical only)
www.luscangroup.com (look under events & trade shows, then ribbons)

You'll find different pricing structures, minimum orders, colors available... #1 is the outfit I use. #2 is the biggest one in the business. Although, a cautionary note -- some people have trouble with the Hodges glue wearing out and their ribbons falling off.

2. Do you want me to order ribbons for you?

Fill in your e-mail address here to sign up for my "Ribbons" mailing list, so you'll know when my orders go in. If you don't sign up for the mailing list, you might not receive your ribbons in time. As a rule of thumb, you should allow at least four weeks for your ribbons, possibly longer depending on whether I've got an order going in for the convention you're interested in.

You can still order ribbons on a week's notice, if you haven't planned ahead, but you may need to get them directly from one of the ribbon printing companies yourself. (See below.)

3. If you want to, though, you can piggyback on my orders.

Mailing list info is near the bottom of this page.

Okay, you want to order your ribbons along with one of my orders. To get the best price, I wait until I have at least 2500 ribbons.

Shipping, postage, tax, shop are all included. You can pay me via Paypal act paypal.me/chazbaden. Current prices as of December 2021, per title:

25 ribbons: $34.88 for new ribbons, $19.88 for reprints
Marco has a minimum of 25, and a price penalty for 25-99. If you've got an official convention ribbon order coming up with some fiddly low-count details, such as "1 Chair ribbon," write to me and we'll see what options we have.
40 ribbons: $38.40 for new ribbons, $23.40 for reprints
50 ribbons: $40.75 for new ribbons, $25.75 for reprints
60 ribbons: $43.10 for new ribbons, $28.10 for reprints
75 ribbons: $46.63 for new ribbons, $31.63 for reprints
100 ribbons: $38.50 for new ribbons, $23.50 for reprints
125 ribbons: $44.38 for new ribbons, $29.38 for reprints
150 ribbons: $50.25 for new ribbons, $35.25 for reprints
200 ribbons: $62.00 for new ribbons, $47.00 for reprints
250 ribbons: $73.75 for new ribbons, $58.75 for reprints
300 ribbons: $85.50 for new ribbons, $70.50 for reprints
400 ribbons: $109.00 for new ribbons, $94.00 for reprints
500 ribbons: $132.50 for new ribbons, $117.50 for reprints
1000 ribbons: $250.00 for new ribbons, $235.00 for reprints

The base price is $.235 per ribbon, plus $15.00 for each new title and $14 for under-100 quantities. So, 200 ribbons would be .235 x 200 + 15 = $62.00

4. Sizes

The ribbons I usually order are the horizontal style, 1 5/8" high and about 4" wide.

5. Ribbon colors

Ribbons are available in these colors:

Black, Brown, Canary (yellow), Celeste (light blue), Eggplant (purple), Emerald Green, Goldenrod, Gray, Hot Cerise (neon Barbie pink), Hot Chartreuse, Hot Green, Hot Pink, Hot Melon (another orange), Ivory, Kelly Green, Lime (another green), Mango, Maroon, Navy, Ocean (medium blue), Orange, Orchid (light purple), Peacock (another medium blue), Pineapple (a darker yellow), Pink, Pumpkin (dark orange), Purple, Rainbow, Red, RWB Special (red-white-blue), Rose, Gold trimmed red, Gold trimmed black, Gold trimmed royal (blue), Gold trimmed white, Royal (blue), Sky (another light blue), Storm (another gray), Teal (darker green than the emerald), Vegas Gold, White.

The most popular color for a ribbon? Black of course -- everyone wants to have have black because it's unique. I won't stop you, but I'll urge you to consider one of the other possibilities other than black/silver, black/white or black/gold.

6. Printing

Colors of foil printing: Black, Blue, Ice Blue, Lake Blue, Bronze (similar to the copper we used to get), Fuchsia, Gold, Glitter Gold, Green, Light Green, Maroon, Orange, Orchid, Pink, Metallic Pink, Purple, Red, Metallic Silver, Glitter Silver, Teal (a medium blue), Yellow, White, Oil Slick, Prism, Rainbow.

7. Justification

Art will be mostly centered left-to-right. The printing tends to be bottom-justified.

8. Typefaces

Because we use custom art for all the ribbons, we can put almost any kind of logo or clip art and any font on your ribbons. I use the Clarendon family of typefaces for most of the silly ribbons I order, but if you've got a favorite font we can use that. No problem. Regarding art, this isn't a place for shading or fine detail. Keep it straight black and white (anti-aliasing is okay), no lines thinner than .02 inch or gaps between printed areas thinner than .02 inch. If you must have some kind of shading, use lines or cross-hatching -- look at the portraits they print in the Wall Street Journal for inspiration.

9. A special note about special art on dark ribbons/light colors

Most of the ribbons we print are dark ribbons with light printing. Doesn't make much of a difference for straight text, but if you've got art that's a physical object -- like a hand, wizard, dragon, condor, penguin or a space station -- you may want to see how your black and white art looks when it's presented as a negative image.

Therefore I suggest starting earlier if you want something fancy!

10. Submitting custom art

Usually I lay out the art for the ribbons. (No charge.) Sometimes people submit their own art, as a high-res PNG or a PDF file or something like that. If you go that route, remember it should be solid black on white. Even if you want yellow ribbons with blue printing, please submit it as a white background with a black design!

11. Timing and turn-around; mailing list.

I send in an order a couple times a year, it depends on how busy things are.

To learn when I'm sending in an order, join the mailing list by sending e-mail to ribbons-subscribe@lists.bostonbaden.com and respond to the confirmation message you'll receive. Or fill in your e-mail address here and respond the confirmation message that you'll receive.

As a rule of thumb, though, if the convention you want the ribbons for is less than a month away, you probably want to send in your own order instead of waiting for my next one to go in. And even allowing one month is pushing it. The reason for this is because while I like to allow three weeks for them to work on my orders, I don't send in an order every week -- so my order might not be going in three weeks before your convention.

12. Graduating and doing it yourself

If you have more than 10 titles, or much more than 2500 ribbons total in your order, it may be time for you to start ordering them directly. I can help you get started. Generally I lay out the art as a 300 dpi grayscale image and cut it down to 2-color black and white. It's not too difficult, if you're adept with a program like Paint Shop Pro you should be able to get the hang of it. Basically, if you've got a lot of titles, it's more work than I want to deal with; if you've got a small number of titles but want a huge number of ribbons, I can keep taking your money but you'd save a bit if you ordered directly.

13. Beyond the scope

Marco can put two colors on the same ribbon. It's more expensive (about twice the price and the minimum run is 250), and for the time being I'm not doing those orders because I don't think I'd get enough orders to fill out a 2500-ribbon order. For a price, they actually do full-color printing: Imagine a color printer running with a roll of ribbon material instead of a stack of paper. But that's very expensive.

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, you might see if there's a wide ribbon at Michaels or Jo-Ann Fabrics that suits your needs, and buy a pair of pinking shears and a roll of Scotch "Scrapbooking Tape" to roll your own ribbons that way.

14. Scrapbooking tape?

Yes, it's the double-sided tape that has a plastic peel-off strip. I've found it handy in case I run across a tapeless ribbon. This photo shows the red/purple packaging, I've also seen it in a mostly purple package. I don't use the double sided sticky back tape in the yellow package, because it doesn't have the protecto-strip.