How to Get Custom Heat Applied Badges in the UK

Heat applied Badges and Patches offer garment decorators a luxurious raised finish on their products. But where can you purchase them in the UK?

Stahls' UK are the leading heat press and heat transfer manufacturer in the UK and across the globe. And lucky for you, they also offer custom heat-applied badges.

Badges can be found made out of a large array of materials, with the most popular being embroidered, rubber, woven and embossed badges. This style of garment decorating is much more time effective for garment decorators as the time spent applying a badge with a heat-activated adhesive is a fraction of the time spent actually embroidering a raised design into a garment or hat. 

So what's the difference between all these styles of badges and patches? And which should you choose for your garment? 

We're going to explore this below..

3D Embossed Badges

Created on two levels, a foreground and a background, this style of badge mimics a raised and more rigid style finish. The touch and feel of an embossed badge is contemporary take on the more traditional styles of woven and can include metallic finishes. 

These badges take just 45 seconds to fuse meaning you could fuse 13 of them in the same time it takes for a traditional embroidery machine to finish a regular embroidered design.

Rubber Patches

Turn your customers’ logos or designs into modern, dimensional patches that stand out from the crowd. Created with spot Pantone colours, the high-end rubber look, flat matte finish, and bright colors are right on-trend, appealing to a wide range of markets. These patches are soft and flexible, yet durable enough to withstand wear and tear, making them ideal for heavier apparel and outerwear like hats, jackets, backpacks and more.

These badges take just 60 seconds to fuse meaning you could fuse 20 of them in the same time it takes for a traditional embroidery machine to finish a chunky raised design.

Embroidered Badges

These high-end, specialty patches combine embroidery and heat application for a full-color, detailed finish that offers the texture and dimension of traditional stitching. 

On average, most embroidered logos are made up of about 6000 stitches and take about 10 minutes for even the highest spec of embroidery machines to complete. This example does not include a raised chunkier finished embroidery design either. For a similar comparison in finish to a heat-applied embroidered badge, you could be looking at 12,000 stitches and 20 minutes for completion. 

Our heat-applied badges arrive finished to your doorstep and take just 45 seconds to fuse. You could actually fuse 26 heat-applied embroidered patches in the time it takes for 1x machine-embroidered design to be completed.

Woven Badges 

Similar to embroidered badges, Woven badges are stitched to offer a traditional feel but are flatter than an embroidered badge. Woven badges offer a higher level of detail, with a twill fabric like texture. All woven badges have an overlocked edge, this appears like a raised frame to compliment your badge when applied. 

These badges take just 45 seconds to fuse meaning you could fuse 13 of them in the same time it takes for a traditional embroidery machine to finish a regular embroidered design.

Subli Block UltraColour Heat Transfers

While this option is not technically a badge or a patch, it offers unlimited tones, gradients and detail so you can create a 2D design that mimics and 3D badge. With the addition of the Subli Block backing to a traditional UltraColour heat transfer, this heat transfer can be fused without the fear of dye migration and it is thick enough to cover a seam or pattern with absolutely no hint of visibility through the transfer.

This is also the fastest fusing option out of our range of badges and patches. Applying this transfer takes just 30 seconds, meaning if you're working with polyester or heat-sensitive hats and garments, you're less likely to encounter any scorching issues with this product.
So which will it be?

These products range in a minimum order quantity of 10 to 200 so there is a badge or patch for every client and every type of project!