achieving the perfect design with yamaha

 

Designing our custom awards is not a simple process. It’s a process that takes time. It takes patience. It’s a process of trial and error, discussion, debate and detailed consideration. 

It’s a process that involves numerous concepts before achieving a result that our design team and our clients are happy with. It’s a process that we dedicate great time and attention to — so when we eventually get to that ‘bingo’ moment and the final concept is decided on, it’s a process that ends in jubilation.

When Yamaha commissioned us to design their elite dealer employee recognition awards, our team tweaked, edited, swapped and changed a whole variety of concepts before achieving the perfect design. 

Below is an example of the concepts we initially developed and above is the design that was taken forward for production. From modernized classic trophy shapes, to extravagant designs including a 3D printed tire, you can see the lengths our designers go to when developing concepts to ensure our awards and trophies are distinctly unique, contemporary and compelling. 

Working from Yamaha’s brand style guide, each concept meets strict corporate branding requirements and features the organization’s trademark brand logo, font type and brand colors. With a personalized touch for each recipient, the awards are ideal employee appreciation and staff recognition gifts.

We pride ourselves on our ability to create awards with a clean aesthetic – without any visible fixings that detract from the overall design. With this in mind, we decided on a concept that hit the requirements of the Yamaha client brief - and worked practically when it came to production - to achieve an award that combined solidity with a sleek finish.

 
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andrew watson design emerges triumphant in the 2024 new york product design awards

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We’re thrilled to be announced as a silver winner of the 2024 New York Product Design Awards. From a pool of over 1,000 submissions, our design was chosen amongst the winners and was deemed exceptional by the judging panel.

Our custom Dew Tour awards crafted for the Des Moines street style skateboard competition were entered into the Figures and Statues category. We're delighted to win the honor of receiving a NY Product Design Award and for the hard work, skill and dedication of our amazing team to be recognized on such a reputable scale.

Dew Tour Des Moines is one of the most high-profile skating events in the world where only the most prolific sponsored skateboarders compete. We were commissioned to design and create custom winners trophies that reflected the Dew Tour brand, event theming and skateboarding aesthetic.

As experienced creators of custom awards, trophies and gifts, we understood the responsibility of creating a product that was completely on brand, professional and compelling. It is hugely rewarding to see that our work was not only appreciated by Dew Tour, but also stood out triumphantly and captivated the attention of a diverse and esteemed judging panel within the world of product design. 

Created to honor and elevate product designers whose innovations enhance our world, the NY Product Design Awards embody a commitment to recognizing excellence. Open to professionals and enthusiasts alike, the competition underscores the significance of product design in today's interconnected and evolving landscape of consumption.

Recently we worked with Dew Tour again to custom design and handcraft the awards for the Winter Dew Tour 20th Anniversary at Copper Mountain, Colorado.

Interested in some BTS content? Check out the Instagram reel we put together during the creation process of the award winning trophies.

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crafting awards for the winter dew tour 20th anniversary

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At Andrew Watson Design, it’s fair to say we’re all pretty into our snow sports. As a small awards business based in the beautiful mountains of British Columbia, just a short drive from the world renowned Whistler Blackcomb, it’s rather hard not to be. So when we were commissioned to design and create winners trophies for the prestigious 2024 Winter Dew Tour event - at the famous Copper Mountain, Colorado - we were eager to get started and bring the awards to life. 

An anniversary year, the 2024 Winter Dew Tour was a 20 year celebration of skiing and snowboarding. We knew the importance of creating unique, standout awards that captured the essence of freestyle snow sports and incorporated Dew Tour’s vibrant and playfully outlandish branding. Working from a clean slate, we custom designed and handcrafted awards completely distinctive to the event and Dew Tour brand. 

Copper Mountain was host to a mind blowing display of action throughout the weekend and we are proud to have supported such an incredible event, and to see our awards in the hands of the amazing winners. Each award included a brushed aluminum rod, to create a subtle handle for recipients to showcase the full award upon the podium — allowing Dew Tour’s dazzling colorway and gripping graphics to take center stage. Understanding the importance of high-level corporate branding, we employed UV flatbed printing to create a D shaped neon green back print, accompanied by Dew Tour’s trademark punchy purple and brand logo.

Andrew Watson Design is delighted to have worked with Dew Tour previously for the 2022 Des Moines street style skateboard competition and we hope to continue this relationship to craft fun and flamboyant awards for exciting events in the future.

custom awards for nutaku

Nutaku custom awards for employee recognition

Nutaku custom awards for outstanding achievements

Watson Design was tasked with crafting custom awards for Nutaku to celebrate outstanding achievements within their company and recognize employee success. Nutaku commissioned Watson Design to create high-quality, custom trophies that reflected their brand and remained completely bespoke. 

The awards were assembled using aluminum tubes with anodized aluminum. These materials combined with the print and design of the awards worked in unison to deliver a harmonized design. The angular lines of the award are echoed in the subtle geometric gloss print that wraps around, inviting the viewer to inspect each side. This adds depth and captures light in a playful manner as it bounces from one line to another. Working with aluminum tubing was not simple and required meticulous work to sand, finish and cap each end before assembling without any visible fixings. Each award was custom made following Nutaku’s style guide and personalized with different numbers, categories and names. 

In order to create an exquisite employee appreciation gift - in line with Nutaku’s corporate identity - Watson Design employed a variety of machinery and range of printing techniques including wide format flatbed, screen printing and sublimation. Watson Design specialize in the custom design and creation of unique hand-crafted awards.


custom dew tour awards for des moines streetstyle skateboard competition

Dew Tour Des Moines custom winners trophies

Custom winners trophies at the 2022 Dew Tour Des Moines

Watson Design was tasked with crafting custom awards for the Dew Tour Des Moines streetstyle skateboard competition — one of the most high-profile skating events in the world where only the most prolific sponsored skateboarders compete. Dew Tour commissioned Watson Design to design and create custom winners trophies that reflected their brand, event theming and skateboarding aesthetic. 

Seeking a dynamic design, Watson Design implemented a mixed-media approach to the awards using a combination of materials that included maple plywood, skateboard grip tape, semi translucent green acrylic, anodized aluminum and solid surface (meganite). Requiring five contrasting materials to be reliably printed on - including the unorthodox grip tape - the project pushed the boundaries of wide format printing and brought challenges to ensure the materials worked together to create a cohesive design. The final product successfully combined all the materials without displaying fixings to create a clean, unique and enterprising award that matched the brand style guide and brief set by Dew Tour. 

Almost 50 individually different custom awards were developed for this project utilizing Watson Design’s thorough methodology process and expertise in the creation of unique, handcrafted, custom designed trophies, awards and plaques.


united nations global compact awards

The brief for this project was to manufacture the award from materials that would be as eco friendly as possible. For the wooden parts of the award, we used a solid Maple wood from a supplier that is FSC certified. The 3D printed body of the award was made from PLA which is a fermented plant starch made up of corn, sugarcane and other plant based materials. The modern geometric form was inspired by the event’s branding and overall theme.

recognizing employees during covid-19

“At the very core of our humanity is our care for one another. Heartfelt appreciation provides sustenance for another day, especially in turbulent times.”
— Dana Ullom-Vucelich

In the middle of a global pandemic, how do we provide that “sustenance for another day” in our day-to-day roles as leaders and employers? What, if anything, should be different about how we lead during these unprecedented times? How can we connect and show appreciation to our employees during these unique times? 

In the absence of recognition tools such as physical events and appreciation weeks, recognizing employees in a remote workforce can leave employers feeling stuck. Employees may be feeling isolated and disoriented during these times, adjusting to working from home and establishing a new form of work-life balance. A great deal of employees are working harder than ever as they navigate through these unprecedented times. It may seem obvious that showing appreciation and recognition for employees is perhaps more important than ever. When employees and their work are appreciated and valued, satisfaction and productivity typically rise, and they are motivated to maintain or improve their good work. There are many ways employers can show appreciation from bonuses and gifts to simple acknowledgments like e-cards, emails, calling out employees for their hard work during online team meetings and simply saying thank you. At Andrew Watson Design, we can offer a custom, creative solutions for recognizing employee contributions in a way that is meaningful. We specialize in designing and hand crafting employee recognition plaques, awards and trophies. All of our awards are made in-house, in our boutique design studio. 

Above, we have two examples of awards created for employee recognition during Covid-19. The awards designed and handcrafted for Trucking’s Frontline Heroes were awarded to trucking companies that delivered essential items during Covid-19. Award recipients were appropriately called “Covid Heroes”. Our team was very proud to be involved in designing and crafting these awards. Thank you Covid Heroes!

The Verizon Media Hack from Home 2020 awards were designed and handcrafted at Andrew Watson Design. These awards recognized the contributions of employees who were working from home. A beautiful, modern award that would sit perfectly on any employees desk to remind them of their meaningful contributions. 

eco awards - sustainable materials

Creating sustainable and eco friendly awards has become a speciality of ours in recent years. We are proud to say that almost all of our trophies, awards, plaques and gifts incorporate some form of sustainable, eco friendly or recovered materials. Contact us today to discuss incorporating sustainable and eco friendly materials into your next project.

At Andrew Watson Design, we specialize in designing and hand crafting recognition products for any occasion. Our in-house design department will design and produce custom corporate recognition products to fulfill your specific needs. Recognizing accomplished goals of staff members is an excellent way to show appreciation for a job well done and to increase motivation for future endeavors.

employee recognition

“A great employee is like a four leaf clover. Hard to find and lucky to have.”
— Tammy Cohen

Most people, if not everyone, like to feel appreciated and valued. Appreciation is a fundamental human need. People respond positively to appreciation through recognition of their work because it shows their work is valued. When employees and their work are valued, their satisfaction and productivity typically rise, and they are motivated to maintain or improve their good work. Employee recognition helps employees to know their contributions are recognized and appreciated. It also helps to retain top talent, increase employee engagement and encourage high performance. With higher employee engagement comes lower turnover rates and stronger business results. 

In a survey by the American Psychological Association (2017), only about half of the U.S. workforce (51%) said they felt valued by their employer. More than a third (36 percent) had not received any form of recognition in the last year. And only 47% said recognition was provided fairly. Employees who said that recognition practices are fair, that direct supervisors provide recognition effectively, and that they value the recognition they receive, reported a variety of positive outcomes. They reported higher levels of job satisfaction, a greater likelihood to work harder because of the recognition they received, stronger motivation to do their best and a greater sense of feeling valued. Making meaningful employee recognition part of your organization’s culture can go a long way toward improving job satisfaction, motivation and work effort. It's amazing that the simple act of showing appreciation for your employees and letting them know they are genuinely valued can work wonders for both the employees and the organization. One of the best ways to demonstrate appreciation of your employees is to honour them with a custom designed and handcrafted plaque, award or trophy. 

At Andrew Watson Design, we specialize in designing and hand crafting employee recognition plaques, awards and trophies. All of our awards are made in-house in our boutique design studio. We pride ourselves on developing close relationships with our clients allowing us to liaise regularly, from initial design to final manufacturing of the awards. Above we have an example of employee recognition awards we made for our client at BP. Our website has hundreds of examples of employee recognition awards.

years of service awards

“The way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement”
— Charles Schwab

Do you want your employees to feel appreciated and connected to your workplace? To feel valued and recognized? Why not celebrate them by offering the perfect ‘years of service’ appreciation gift? A custom designed, handcrafted plaque, award or trophy. 

Employees want to be appreciated for their talent, their accomplishments and successes over the course of their career, whether it’s their first year at an organization or their 20th. Studies have shown a substantial increase in employees feeling like their company cares about them when service anniversaries are celebrated. Such recognition fosters feelings of appreciation, creates connectedness and defines workplace culture. When companies recognize years of service their employees feel like they fit in and belong, they build trust with leaders and strengthen loyalty. Perhaps the greatest value from a service awards program is its ability to kick-start a culture of recognition.

Here we have several examples of ‘years of service’ awards we have designed and manufactured for our clients, within our boutique awards design studio. 

mmt - core values awards

We created these custom awards for our client Master Mind Talks (MMT) in the USA. The awards represent the five core values of the company: curiosity, generosity, acceptance, vulnerability and inclusion. Each award was designed to be distinct and features a unique laser engraved pattern on the laser cut semi-transparent acrylic. Each award has a unique mountain pattern cut from top of the award.

milliken financial tombstone - custom awards

We designed these custom ‘financial tombstone’ awards for our client Milliken & Company in South Carolina, USA. The awards were created to acknowledge a recent acquisition. The design of the ‘financial tombstone’ was created to reflect an abstract paint can as Milliken & Company acquired a paint based business. For these awards, we brushed the metal by hand and inserted a thick back printed acrylic panel to both sides of the award. We added a heavy weight inside the award so it would stand level and return to a horizontal plane when placed on a surface. A very modern and clean design that was well received by the recipients.

canadian health food association awards

A series of custom designs made specifically for the Canadian Health Food Association awards ceremony. Taken together, they create a unique collection that represents a tiered awards system. Incorporating the clients corporate colour palette, we created a colourful sub-graphic for the awards. Sustainably sourced bamboo and anodized aluminium were used to manufacture the awards. 

avery dennison awards - custom

We worked closely with our client at Avery Dennison USA on this custom project. The original design came from our client in the form of a rough pencil sketch. We then finessed that sketch into a refined and finished design ready for production. The idea behind the interwoven rings was to communicate collaboration and synergy, which was done in a subtle and modern way. The colours represent the clients branding.

custom collection - A&W

We designed this collection of awards for A&W Canada. Each award style represents a different achievement but, they all relate to each other by using the same design language (materials and typography). Creating a cohesive collection of awards is always a challenge but, we were able to deliver and exceed the clients expectations. These awards were all custom designed and handcrafted by us in our Vancouver location. 

gap inc. - custom awards

We were commissioned by Gap Inc. (USA) to design these custom awards for their annual conference. With a client like Gap, naturally we were keen to stay on brand; our combination of anodized aluminum and denim maintains a modern style award while referencing Gap’s roots. The incorporation of denim is an unusual choice for an award but, in this instance it worked beautifully. We understand our clients brands and are bold enough to propose unique designs.

let’s discuss your awards