This article was originally published in March 2013. Updated and republished January 2025.
Confusingly, the terms “woven” and “embroidered” are sometimes used interchangeably with regard to badges, but in fact they refer to two quite distinct (though similar) types of sew on badge.
The technical difference is that woven badges are made by weaving together fine threads, while embroidered badges are made by stitching thicker threads onto a piece of fabric.
This difference in the manufacturing technique results in a number of important differences in the final products.
Because embroidered threads are thicker and are stitched onto a piece of fabric, the effect is that the stitching has a raised feel. The raised feel of the stitching means that the end result is considered quite traditional, as well as being tactile and nice to handle.
The images below show details from a selection of embroidered badge. You can see the stitches raised above the background fabrics. The direction and length of the stitches varies according to each particular aspect of the design. The result is a traditional feel only possible with embroidery.
By contrast because woven badges are made by weaving threads together rather than stitching to a fabric, the surface of the final badges is flat and smooth. Additionally because the threads themselves are finer, it is possible to achieve much greater detail than with embroidery.
The images below show details from woven badges. You can see the flat smooth surface and the excellent replication of even extremely fine details that is possible because of the fine woven threads.
The next important difference between embroidered badges and woven badges is the colour choice that is available. Woven threads are chose from thousands of available threads, which means that they can be accurately matched to solid coated pantone references.
Embroidered badges have hundreds of possible colour threads rather than thousands, which means we still have lots of colours to choose from but may not be able to match exactly to your pantone in the way that we can with a woven badge.
This means that woven is often a better choice for corporate logos or situations were exact colour replication or adherence to branding guidelines is critical.
The range of standard embroidery threads has several hundred to choose from:
Thousands of colours available for woven badges:
