Case Study: Fully Moulded Metal Lanyard Hardware for FWD Takaful Berhad
Corporate Gift Case Study
Project Overview 🧡🔩
FWD Takaful Berhad came to us for a year-end lanyard rollout with one unusual instruction attached: nothing printed. Every FWD logo had to be formed in the metal itself, and the rope had to sit on their exact brand orange. That requirement turned a routine lanyard order into the most expensive one we have ever produced.
The Challenge 🎯
Most lanyards on the market come one of two ways: a single-colour print on the webbing, or a full-colour heat transfer where the artwork runs across the whole strap. Both are quick, both are affordable, and between them they cover the large majority of what gets ordered in Malaysia. The metal that comes with them is stock hardware — the same hooks and sliders everyone else is using, with nothing on them.
FWD wanted neither. The logo had to be raised out of the metal on every component a person would touch, down to the small keeper sleeves that ride along the rope and the round swivel disc on the hook, which is roughly the size of a fingernail. Once print is off the table there is only one option left, and it is the expensive one: the metal has to be made from scratch, which means cutting a separate steel mould for each shape.
The colour carried its own trap. A Pantone chip is printed ink on coated paper, while a lanyard rope is dyed polyester braid — a round, woven surface that scatters light instead of reflecting it flat. The same reference lands differently on the two, which is why a rope that looks right on screen can read a shade off the moment you hold it against the fan deck. FWD needed their exact brand orange, not something in the same family.
What We Did 🔩
We worked through the hardware component by component, checking how the logo would hold up at each size before committing to tooling — a mark that reads cleanly on the main slider does not automatically survive being shrunk onto a keeper sleeve. Moulds were then cut for the slider, the keepers, the swivel hook and the rope end caps.
Then came the step clients rarely see. A component fresh out of a mould does not look like the finished photos: it comes out dull and grey with casting lines still on it, closer to a spare part than to something a financial brand puts its name on. Every piece went out for polishing as a separate process, after moulding and before assembly. That is the difference between hardware that looks bought and hardware that looks made.
For the rope, we ran dye lots and checked them physically against the Pantone fan in the same light rather than approving a digital proof, comparing more than one lot before settling on the match. The lanyard was assembled with a phone strap patch alongside the swivel hook so the same piece works as a phone lanyard or a card holder, then packed individually in a pouch with a hang hole, ready to be handed out without further sorting.
The Result ✅
The finished lanyard carries the FWD logo on every metal part, down to the keeper sleeves most companies would never think to brand. The orange is theirs, verified against the fan rather than a screen. Nothing on it is printed.
We still remember this project, which is not something we say about most lanyard orders. It is the one that comes out of the sample drawer when a client asks what the ceiling actually looks like.
It is also not what we would recommend to everyone, and we would rather say so than sell it. Tooling is a one-time cost that does not care how many pieces you order, and both mould making and polishing sit before production rather than inside it. Spread across a large run or a brand that will reorder the same hardware for years, it makes sense; spread across a few hundred pieces for a single event, it does not. For most orders a single-colour print or a full-colour heat transfer lanyard does the job well. Custom tooling is for the situation FWD was in — a brand that wanted its identity on the object itself, with a reason for every part to match.
Thinking of Tooling Your Own Lanyard Hardware? 🧡
GiftsDepot.my produces custom lanyards in Malaysia across the full range, from single-colour print and full-colour heat transfer on ready-stock hardware through to fully tooled metal like this project. Tell us the quantity and what the lanyard is for, and we will tell you honestly where the money is worth spending and where it is not.
A year-end lanyard rarely travels alone. If the same event also needs a premium gift for every guest — annual dinner, AGM or launch — that is the same team, the same warehouse and the same artwork check.
Browse our lanyard printing in Malaysia range, see our premium gifts selection, compare the options in our printing methods guide, or contact our team to talk through a custom project.