Printed pens are the most common form of promotional items on the market in the present day. If one were to walk into any promotion of any type, they are guaranteed to find the pens being used as promotional materials. When it comes to printed pens given out for promotional purposes, there are different printing techniques used on printed pens.

With the advancement of technology promotional agencies can now provide a myriad of different printed promotional pens. In the past there were only a handful variety of designs for printed pens, now the number will surpass your expectations. There are pens that have the logo of the company, pens with cartoon characters printed on them, pens with different colours and writing and pens which are personalised with the owner’s name etc. All this is possible due to the advancement of technology.

Screen Printing

Screen printing is the most commonly used form of printing. It can be used to print paper, plastic, glass, metals, fabrics and of course, pens. Screen printing is commonly used as any type of material can be printed using this method and the effect is more pronounced than that of any other printing technique.

With this technique, a thin mesh is contained inside a framing making the screen. A coating which is light-sensitive then covers this and a light is shone through onto the screen and the heat from the light will solidify the coating. The item to be printed is placed on a horizontal surface with the screen on top and a "squeegee" is used to place the ink in the screen frame.

Two types of machines are used for screen printing; these are the high volume capacity automatic machines and the semi automatic which is manually functioned. This process may not be too popular as it is time consuming.

Pad Printing

If you wish to transfer a 2D image into a 3D object, pad printing is the best technique. Often, this technique produces images that a screen printing process cannot. For this reason, pad printing is used on a large scale for the printing of promotional pens and keyboards.

A metal plate with a raised image of the artwork is fixed into the pad printer. A synthetic material is pressed against the plate and the image will be transferred to the object.

Hot Foil Blocking

The hot foil blocking technique is also ideal for the printing of pens for promotional use. The foil used commonly will be gold or silver. However, other colours too can be used. With hot foil blocking of pens, print will be a nice shiny gold or silver. The only downside to this technique is the fact that small details can often be lost in the process of printing.

An image is raised and placed in the blocking machine and heated. The promotional pens are in a jig. Between these two items is the foil. Under pressure the foil will attach itself to the product and voila, your image will appear.