The Logo Is an Engineering Decision, Not Decoration

Where and how your logo lands on a product changes the tool, the assembly sequence, the unit cost, and how the product looks after a year in a customer's hands. It is also hard to reverse: a logo cut into steel is there until someone pays to weld and re-machine the cavity. Four methods cover almost every case, each with its own cost curve, durability profile, and geometry rules. Choose deliberately, and choose before the mold design is released.

Molded-In: The Logo That Never Wears Off

Cutting the logo into the mold cavity gives you a raised or recessed mark that is part of the plastic. Once the tool exists it costs nothing per part, it cannot be scratched off, and it reads as integral rather than applied. That combination is why premium products favor it.

The constraints are real, though:

  • One color only. Same resin, same color as the part. You can get contrast from texture (a polished logo on a textured field, or the reverse) but not from pigment.
  • Draft is mandatory. Raised features need at least 3 to 5 degrees of draft on the side walls, more on a textured surface, and the mold-side geometry follows the same logic as every other feature covered in draft angles and parting lines.
  • Depth and stroke minimums. Keep relief between 0.008 and 0.020 in (0.2 to 0.5 mm) and stroke width at 0.012 in (0.3 mm) or greater. Fine serifs and hairline logos fill in or refuse to eject cleanly.
  • Recessed marks collect dirt. On a hand-held product, an engraved logo turns gray in six months. Raised marks stay cleaner but abrade at high-touch points.
  • Sink risk. A deeply engraved logo on the outside means extra material thickness behind it, which can produce a visible sink mark. Keep the local wall consistent, per injection molding defects.

Cost: typically $300 to $1,500 added to the tool for cavity engraving, or roughly $800 to $3,000 for an EDM-burned detailed logo. Changing it later costs about the same again plus one to three weeks of tool downtime.

Printing on the Part: Color and Flexibility

Printing gives you brand color, multi-color artwork, and the ability to change the design without touching steel. Three processes dominate.

Pad printing transfers ink from an etched plate using a silicone pad, which conforms to curved and slightly irregular surfaces. It is the workhorse for logos on plastic housings. Expect $0.05 to $0.30 per color per part at moderate volume, plus $100 to $400 per plate. Registration between colors is around 0.004 in, so tight multi-color artwork needs care.

Screen printing lays down a thicker ink film with better opacity, ideal for light artwork on dark parts, but it wants a flat or single-curvature surface. Laser marking uses no ink at all. On many resins the beam produces a permanent light-on-dark or dark-on-light mark, and on anodized aluminum it ablates the dye layer to reveal bright metal, which is why so many machined enclosures use it. Cost is essentially machine time, often $0.10 to $0.50 per part, with no consumables and no artwork change cost. The catch is that contrast depends entirely on the material: some plastics mark beautifully, others barely change, and you must run a sample before committing. On coated metal parts the interaction with the finish matters, so read it alongside anodizing aluminum.

Printed and lasered marks both need durability testing. Specify an alcohol rub test, a tape adhesion pull, and an abrasion cycle count, and ask the vendor to run them on production-finish parts. A clear topcoat improves rub resistance on pad printing at a small extra cost.

Labels and Decals: Cheap, Fast, and Changeable

A printed label is the least expensive way to get full-color branding onto a product: $0.02 to $0.25 each, with artwork changes costing nothing but a new print run. It is the correct answer for regulatory information that varies by region, for short runs, and for products where the branding will change before the tooling does.

The downsides are equally clear. Labels peel, especially at edges, on curved surfaces, and after dishwasher or UV exposure. Adhesion on low-surface-energy plastics such as polypropylene requires surface treatment or a specialty adhesive, and a label that lifts looks worse than no branding at all. Recess the label into a shallow pocket so its edges are protected, and specify the adhesive by name rather than accepting whatever the label shop uses.

A middle option is in-mold decoration, where a printed film is placed in the cavity and resin is shot behind it. The graphic ends up under the part surface, unscratchable and photographic in quality. Tooling and film setup push it toward volume programs.

Four Questions That Pick the Method

How many colors does the mark need? More than one rules out molded-in and laser.

How abrasive is the product's life? A tool handle, a phone case, or anything that lives in a bag argues for molded-in or in-mold decoration. A device that sits on a shelf can take a label.

How settled is the branding? If the company name or mark may change, or if the product is white-labeled for multiple customers, keep the logo off the steel. This is a common requirement in white label manufacturing, where one tool serves several brands.

What volume are you running? Under a few thousand units, tool engraving is a large per-unit cost. Above twenty thousand, molded-in or in-mold is usually the cheapest option on a per-part basis.

Two Things to Settle Before You Sign Off

First, confirm you own the mark. Putting an unregistered logo on tooling and then finding a conflict is an expensive way to learn the process described in how to trademark a product name. Run the search before the tool, not after.

Second, coordinate the logo with the rest of the surface treatment. Its position, size, and finish are part of the overall CMF story, and a chrome logo on a matte housing is a decision with a cost attached. Handle it inside the same review as the rest of the color, material, and finish package, and keep the artwork under revision control with the CAD.

Get Your Branding Onto the Part Correctly

Projects House specifies logo application as part of design for manufacturing: method selection, artwork prepared to the process, vendor coordination, and durability testing on production parts. Send your logo and your product through our contact form and we will tell you what each method costs on your specific geometry.