Fair Oaks Ranch Police Department: Incorporating Agency Identity into a Metal Badge
When the Fair Oaks Ranch Police Department approached Badge & Wallet about new badges, they wanted the new badge to reflect an important part of their department's existing visual identity. The City of Fair Oaks Ranch has a distinctive logo that combines the letters F and O with oak leaves.
Fair Oaks Ranch already used a distinctive design element on its uniform patch that combined the shape of Texas with the Fair Oaks Ranch city logo. They wanted that same design element repeated on their new metal badge.
The challenge was finding a way to incorporate it while preserving the existing badge design the department already liked.
Customizing What Mattered Most
Creating a distinctive agency badge doesn't necessarily mean designing the entire badge from scratch.
For Fair Oaks Ranch, we were able to retain the existing S36TX badge base and panels.
Custom development could be concentrated on the element that would make the badge uniquely theirs: a newly tooled Texas-shaped centerpiece based on the design already used on the department's patch.
This allowed Fair Oaks Ranch to achieve a highly customized result while focusing the scope and cost of development on the part of the badge that truly needed to be unique.
The new design was used to outfit the entire department, with versions created for five different ranks: Officer, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant and Chief.
Translating a Patch Design Into Metal
A design that works on an embroidered patch doesn't always translate directly into a metal badge.
One of the defining features of the Fair Oaks Ranch design is the blue city logo at the center of the Texas shape. Preserving that color within the new metal centerpiece presented a manufacturing challenge.
One possible method was to print the blue onto the surface. While printing could reproduce the color, printed artwork can wear with regular use. In this application, printing also would have required the custom component to be adhered to the badge rather than hard-soldered. Hard solder creates a stronger, more durable connection, making it better suited to a badge intended for regular duty wear.
Working together with Fair Oaks Ranch and Smith & Warren's production team, we refined the design to preserve the department's visual identity while taking advantage of the durability of die-struck metal and enamel.
Preserving the Design in a Durable Construction
Our approach uses blue enamel rather than surface printing for the central "FO" element. Because some fine details around the logo were too small to reproduce in enamel, they remain metal. Metal borders around the colored areas also provide the structure necessary to manufacture the centerpiece successfully.
The result preserves the Texas imagery, the red, white, and blue colors, and the Fair Oaks Ranch city logo while adapting the original design element to a construction suitable for a duty badge.
Rather than simply reproducing the patch artwork in another medium, the design was thoughtfully translated into metal.
The Finished Fair Oaks Ranch Badge
The finished badge combines the traditional structure of the S36TX with a design element already meaningful to the department.
The project also shows something important for other agencies considering a new badge: customization doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Many departments begin with an existing catalog badge on our website and customize its wording, finish, and other available options. A custom center seal can take that personalization further by incorporating an agency's own artwork. And, as the Fair Oaks Ranch project demonstrates, there are situations where an existing badge can support an even more distinctive custom component without requiring the entire badge to be developed from scratch.
The right approach depends on the design. The goal is to use existing badge components where they work and focus custom development where it adds the most value.
For Fair Oaks Ranch, that meant retaining the S36TX badge base and panels while creating one custom-molded component that transformed the finished badge into something distinctly their own.
When the badges arrived, the department told us:
“We love the badges and they turned out amazing.”
Have an Idea for Your Department's Badge?
If your vision involves adding an element of local or agency identity to your badge, explore our Custom Seal Program. If you have something more involved in mind, contact us to discuss your design and we'll help you determine the best way to bring it to life.
Explore Custom Seals | Contact Us About Your Badge Design