Branding Evolved: STEP Printed Emblems

Take a look around your office and notice how almost every product from printers and eyeglasses, to the appliances in the lunchroom, and the cars parked outside have a branded emblem displaying the logo of the company or the product model. Emblems are an important part of establishing a brand's identity. The logo, the font, and the emblem's overall finish and appearance communicate more than just a name. Each factor plays a role in establishing a brand's reputation.

In today's manufacturing landscape, injection molding is seen as the single viable option for high volume badging and emblem part production. This is the case for a few reasons; molded parts use high quality thermoplastics, can be coated or plated by a variety of materials, and are cost efficient at mass production quantities. However, injection molding has its limitations as well, especially when it comes to the process of designing, developing and releasing a new emblem in lesser quantities.

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When designing a new emblem, it's advantageous to have many options to see, feel, test, and show. This proves very difficult with injection molding, as the lead time for a tool can take months. Additionally, having variations on one design requires slow and risky alterations on a single tool, or an expensive investment in multiple tools.

Evolve's Selective Thermoplastic Electrophotography Process, or STEP, is an additive manufacturing technology that is uniquely positioned to address these challenges specifically.

While 3D printing is widely capable of complexity in design and of mass customization, other additive processes fall short when it comes to material quality and mechanical properties, achieving the necessary surface finish required, or the ability to produce consistently at scale. It's these qualities that make STEP a practical and transformational technology for developing and producing emblems.

STEP prints fully dense parts using real engineering thermoplastics, the same plastics that are used in injection molding, and executes impressive surface finish and feature fidelity. STEP parts achieve surface roughness as low as 1.5 μm Ra as-printed, and with mechanical post-printing processes STEP parts feature roughness below 0.5 μm Ra. The combination of these capabilities is unique within the additive landscape and together enable Evolve's STEP parts to be painted, plated, coated, and finished in all the ways that one is?able to finish injection molded plastics.

Emblems are an especially successful and cost-effective application for STEP. STEP is excellent for printing small, thin, detailed, and customizable parts. Print unlimited design options for no additional cost and in end-use materials. Avoid the risks and costs of injection molding. Maximize efficiency and agility from prototyping, through bridge production, and on to mass manufacturing with STEP.