Embossing

Embossing is the process of pressing a logo into a soft substrate. Most commonly it's into leather products like compendiums or wallets but we also commonly emboss logos onto suede peaks on caps or cardboard. More generally an embossed logo is any logo that sits below the surface of a product, as opposed to debossed which sits above the surface.

A large part of the cost of embossing is the plate. The logo is machined out of a piece of aluminum and this plate is what is used to do the embossing. The plate is pressed into the leather of a product under a force of several hundred kilograms, leaving a permanent indentation.

It's important to note that only genuine leather and bonded leather can be embossed. Artificial leathers and plastics generally cannot be embossed because a material needs to be reasonably thick for embossing to work.

Once a plate is manufactured embossing is relatively low cost and the cost does not decrease with volume.