Picks are bought on a print area and a price. Here is what actually decides whether anybody keeps one.

Get the gauge as a number

Thin and medium picks flex, and that flex is what makes a strummed chord sound like a chord rather than six separate notes. Heavy picks do not flex, so the energy goes into the string — which is what lead players want and what strummers hate.

“Medium” is not a specification. It covers roughly 0.6mm to 0.88mm across brands. Ask for millimetres, and consider printing the number on the pick so anybody who liked it can reorder correctly.

Choose the material for the problem you have

Celluloid if you want the familiar warm sound and do not mind that it wears fastest. Nylon if picks are being dropped — it grips a warm damp hand and it is quieter on the attack. Delrin if picks are being worn out — it is slick, bright and extremely durable. Ultem if you want hard and clicky.

This changes the sound more than the shape does, and it is almost never discussed on a promotional quote.

Understand where print survives

The strike edge is abraded by strings. The face is abraded by a thumb. Those are the two places your logo is.

A played pick goes faint in weeks. A pick in a wallet lasts for ever. Decide which one you are making, and if it is a keepsake, engrave metal or wood instead of printing plastic.

Print both faces

It costs very little and it doubles the odds that a legible side is facing up when somebody looks at it, on a merch table or in a pocket.

It also gives a played pick a second life once the first face has gone.

Put it on a card

A loose pick disappears. A pick die-cut out of a printed card is merch, and it sells at a merch table in two minutes.

The card is also where everything that will not fit on the pick goes: the gauge, the material, your website, a QR code. A pick is twenty-nine millimetres across; stop trying to fit a paragraph on it.