Designing Acrylic Keychains

Oct 2025

If you've ever been to an artist's alley then you're familiar with the humble acrylic keychain. Acrylic keychains are shiny and playful so they're high up on my tier list of enjoyable objects. Being an artist, I felt compelled to make some.

Two years ago I designed my first keychain, and since then I've made nearly two dozen in many different sizes, shapes, and materials. I've learned a lot along the way and want to share, so if you've never designed a keychain but want to try, I hope these tips will help you!

The Basics

What is an acrylic keychain? It's a few pieces of paper sandwiched between some clear acrylic, with a clasp at the top that lets you attach it to things - a zipper, key ring, etc.

You as the artist get to decide what piece(s) of paper are inside the acrylic. What is drawn on the paper, and what shape is it? Depending on your keychain manufacturer you'll also have other options like size, special materials, clasp options, and more. These you will choose on the manufacturer's website.

I'm assuming here that you already have some ideas for keychains and that you're able to use image software to make these designs. Regardless of how you make your artwork, these simple tips will help you not fumble your designs.

Print color

Your computer screen and printers deal with color differently - each is capable of producing different ranges of color. What this means is that some colors your computer displays don't show up well on print. If your image software has an option to preview print colors, use it to ensure your beautiful, cute, charming, etc artwork won't get dulled when it goes to print.

I've found the worst offender of dulled colors goes to bright cyan-ish colors - I guess cyan printer ink just ain't as goated as computer LCD. If your colors do become dulled in the print preview, you should adjust your design around it. It's kinda annoying but alas. Better to deal with it now than have it surprise you later.

Keychain size

Manufacturers let you pick the size of your keychain, usually in the range of 25-100mm (1-4 inches). If you don't know what size will be good, take a similarly sized object (perhaps another keychain?) and hold it up to your monitor, then zoom in/out on the canvas until your artwork is the same size as the object. Does that seem like a good size? Too big? Too small?

Flipping your canvas

If you're painting, please flip your canvas. I forget to do it way too much. Keychains often have a flipped version of your art on the back so if your art only reads well in one direction it's noticeable.

Flipping text

If there is text or any other element of your keychain that need to appear in a certain direction, you'll need to flip it for the backside otherwise it will be backwards. If you have text as part of the silhouette you'll have to live with the text being backwards on the back but honestly there are worse things that have happened in this world.

Clasp placement

Your design will have a clasp placed at its top so that it sits upright as it dangles. It's good to remember this fact as you make your art, especially for more lopsided designs.

Silhouettes

Silhouettes are important for keychains, moreso that other printed merch like prints or stickers.

Keychains can sit against any kind of background so they need strong silhouettes to be legible.

Outlines

Outlines are an easy way to clarify silhouette. A dark outline surrounded by a light outline (or vice versa) will ensure clarity no matter the color of the artwork or environment.

Previewing silhouette

To see if your artwork will properly stand out, change the background color of your canvas to various colors, especially grayscale tones from black to white.

Borders

Most acrylic keychains will have a small border of acrylic around the artwork, besides special borderless options that some manu's provide. This acrylic border softens & rounds the silhouette of keychains, which maybe you want to consider (I do because I overthink things).

Design Options

When submitting a design manufacturers give you a lot of design options, and they expect you to submit art in certain ways.

Layer formatting

For simple keychains you can just submit one .png image and call it a day, but for more complicated designs (different front/back, shaker keychains) you'll need to submit multiple images. I like to submit my images by putting them in a folder, naming them appropriately, and then zipping the folder for submission.

Materials

There are many materials to choose from besides clear acrylic - holographic acrylic, holofoil patterns atop acrylic, colored acrylic, metallic foil... lots of good and yummy shiny things.

These unique materials can be very eyecatching, but they can also distract from your printed artwork, so be careful with material choice. A good use of material can elevate a keychain to something special but bad material use can soil your beautiful art. Some materials like holofoil are subtle whereas other like colored acrylic are intense.

Abnormal Keychains

There are some strange and fun keychain options like shakers or spinning keychains. These are harder to design for and require submitting more pngs, but they can also be super fun!

My first keychain was a shaker keychain with 5 shaker pieces and it took around 20 hours to design, not sure why I did that for my debut but it's also my best selling keychain so make of that what you will.

Clasps

You get to pick a clasp! Yay! U-hook clasps are by far the easiest to clip on so I usually pick those.

Consonance between art and design

When considering materials, keychains with extra parts, and clasps, I like to think about the consonance between these elements and the keychain art. Do they complement each other? Are they working towards the same goal? The most stunning keychains have these elements play off each other and make the best of the medium.

Proofs

Once you submit your order, someone will begin working on a proof, which is basically the blueprint for your keychains. It shows things like the acrylic border width and clasp placement. When you receive the proof, make sure to spend a minute looking over it, especially for more complicated designs.

If something is amiss, don't hesitate to deny the proof and give notes. The person who made the proof is also a talented human being, so communicate well and trust them to make good decisions. Try to be clear and thorough with your feedback since each back-and-forth message can take a few days, and the manufacturing process takes long enough already.

If the proof looks good, confirm that shit👍

Once the proof is approved, the manufacturing and shipping process can take a few weeks and then a package will arrive at your door. Your keychains are here!

Thanks for reading, if this inspired you to make some keychains then lmk!! Send a pic!!

If you have any questions or comments, email me or message on discord - andrewdunne.gamedev@gmail.com | @oatvercast (discord).