A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words
If your goal is to share a message with your challenge coins, deciding what text to include in your coin design seems like the first step. But not everyone follows this route. As opposed to a text-heavy challenge coin that focuses more on the words pressed into the coin face, coins without text let the artwork do all the talking.
Having a beautifully detailed design with unique artwork always makes a coin more enticing, and the absence of text can encourage closer examination when done correctly. While the message may not be clear to everyone, only having detailed artwork on your coin is sometimes all you need to hide your message in plain sight. Being in on the secret makes the design more special to the people receiving each coin, but for the rest of us, the mystery can be just as exciting.
The Unanswered Questions of Coins Without Any Text
While a picture may be worth a thousand words, it might be difficult to string all those words together and figure out what they mean. This is by no means a bad thing. Without a clear message pressed into the metal, challenge coins without any text have a special sense of mystery. The customers who come up with the artwork will obviously know what they mean, and odds are that the people who receive them will know what they mean, but for the rest of us, the design may forever be surrounded by unanswered questions.
Take these coins for example. We spent a lot of time crafting the intricate edging pattern and 3D alien at the center of the coin design, but we still have no idea what it means. What’s the significance of the Celtic Knot pattern surrounding the little alien? On the back of the coin, it looks like the eight planets of our solar system are surrounding that strange symbol: could it be the sun? And what about the tally marks? Are they code of some kind?
It only took a few minutes of passing the coins around the office for theories to spring up, each one getting more elaborate than the last. What we do know is that these coins are extremely small at just 1”, a size that wouldn’t really be possible if you wanted legible text on your coin, and that the contact ordered them with special coin bezels. The coin bezels will help protect them over time and make it easy to attach them to a necklace, key ring or charm bracelet. Why they’re meant to be worn, and who will be wearing them is still a mystery.
And what about this coin? Rather than using carefully constructed 3D artwork and intricate patterns, this coin has a lot of negative space that adds emphasis to the relatively simple designs. The black and white contrast on the front side of the coin helps the falcon emblem become the centerpiece of the artwork. As far as we can figure, this coin could represent anything from a local club to a secret organization working towards world domination!
The lack of text on a coin design is what makes puzzling over the artwork so much fun. Your questions can only be answered by someone who’s a part of the organization. At least, that’s if this coin was created for an organization of some kind. Either way, they’re great conversation starters, and when you’re in on the secret, the design becomes that much more special.
This last coin has a much brighter presentation than the others. The combination of high polish gold plating and translucent enamel give the artwork a unique shimmer that’s both eye-catching and beautiful. While the striking design is easy to appreciate, the meaning behind the artwork is just as indiscernible as the others.
Here at Signature Coins, we make thousands upon thousands of custom coins every year, and designs without any text at all are extremely rare. The void of unanswered questions surrounding these coins is filled with our team’s speculations, some of which get as far fetched as you can imagine. But instead of trying to unravel the mystery of this coin, we figured it would be more fun to let you decide.
Telling a Story With More Than Just Words
There’s any number of reasons that our customers choose to create a custom coin without text. Some prefer the clean, crisp look of artwork without any lettering around the coin. Other groups have emblems or logos without any letters in them. And then there are some who like to hide a few secrets or inside jokes in plain sight.
There’s nothing wrong with creating a text-heavy challenge coin. We have numerous examples of beautifully crafted challenge coins that give the artwork a voice by stamping messages into the metal. But keep in mind that every custom coin tells a story, whether it has a hundred words printed on the coin face or no words at all. So, next time you see a striking challenge coin design without any text, take a closer look. The message is there somewhere, but it’s the artwork that’s doing all the talking.
You may not be able to unravel the mystery right away, but it’s fun to know that there is someone out there who knows exactly what the design means. Finding a way to be in on the secret makes the coin even more fun.
