Custom Acrylic Plaque Awards — Laser-Cut to Any Shape

What second-surface printing means for the finished award

The phrase appears throughout this page, and it is the single thing that most separates a printed acrylic award from a sticker on a piece of plastic. Second-surface printing puts the ink on the back face of the clear acrylic rather than the front. You then look at the artwork through an eighth of an inch of polished acrylic.

Two things follow from that, and both matter on race day:

• The print cannot be damaged by handling. The ink is behind the acrylic, so the surface that gets picked up, stacked, passed along a podium and packed into a truck is bare acrylic. There is no printed layer on the outside to scuff, peel at the edges or wear away where thumbs land.
• The image gains visible depth. Light passes through the clear face, hits the ink and comes back, which is why colours read as though they sit inside the award rather than on it. It is the same reason a photograph under glass looks richer than the same print pinned to a wall.

It also explains a detail that surprises people the first time they see a proof: artwork for second-surface printing is laid down in mirror image, because it is being viewed from the other side. That is handled during layout, so there is nothing to reverse before sending files.

Preparing artwork so the first proof is the right one

Most of the back-and-forth on a custom award comes from the artwork rather than the design, and nearly all of it is avoidable. What follows is what makes a file print cleanly at award size.

• Send vector art where it exists. Logos drawn as vectors — the AI and EPS formats listed above — scale to any award size without softening, because they are stored as shapes rather than pixels. A logo that looks crisp in an email signature is often only a couple of hundred pixels wide, and an award is considerably larger than an email signature.
• If only a raster file exists, send the largest one you have. The original export, not a version that has been placed in a document, screenshotted or sent through a messaging app. Every one of those steps discards detail permanently, and no amount of work at our end puts it back.
• Get sponsor logos from the sponsor. Sponsors almost always keep a brand or press kit with proper artwork in it. A logo lifted from a sponsor's website is usually the small, compressed version built for a web page, and sponsor artwork is the part of an award most likely to be scrutinised afterwards.
• Say what the text should read, exactly. Class names, placings, dates, spellings of rider and winner names. Names are the detail people notice and the one thing a reprint cannot un-notice.
• Flag anything that has to match a brand colour. If a series or company colour has to be exact, say so and name it rather than leaving it to be sampled from a logo file, where compression may have shifted it.

Everything above is what the free design proof is for. The proof is the point at which artwork problems are cheap to fix, which is the argument for sending files early rather than sending them complete.

Caring for an acrylic award

Acrylic keeps its clarity for decades, but it is softer than glass and it reacts to some common household cleaners. Two habits protect it:

• Clean with mild soap and water on a soft, damp microfibre cloth. Dust first, or lift the dust away wet — dragging grit across acrylic under a dry cloth is what puts the fine scratches into it. Paper towels are more abrasive than they feel and are best avoided entirely.
• Keep ammonia and alcohol away from it. Standard blue glass cleaners are typically ammonia-based, and ammonia and alcohol both attack acrylic, producing a network of fine surface cracks known as crazing. Crazing is permanent, it cannot be polished out, and it is the most common way a good award is ruined by someone trying to look after it.

Beyond cleaning, keep an award out of sustained direct sunlight and away from heat sources such as a radiator or a rear window, and it will hold its finish indefinitely. Light surface scratches in acrylic can usually be reduced with a plastic polish, which is not true of glass — one of the quieter advantages of the material.

Acrylic racing trophy plates

Plate award, plaque award and trophy plate all describe the same thing here: a flat acrylic panel, laser-cut to an outline you choose and printed in full colour on the second surface. Racing events tend to call them plates, banquet and corporate buyers tend to call them plaques, and the product does not change with the name.

The format suits motorsport for a practical reason. A plate carries a class name, a placing, a round number, an event logo and a row of sponsor marks at a readable size on one face, which a figure-and-column trophy cannot do without a separate engraving plate. It also travels flat, so a full weekend's worth of awards ships in a fraction of the volume.

Sizes run 8″ to 16″ at $9 to $19 each, and the same artwork scales across the range — a common setup is a larger plate for overall and class winners with the smaller sizes covering the rest of the podium.

Buying acrylic plates for an event

There is no minimum order, so the quantity is whatever the event actually needs. A single replacement plate for a missed podium is a normal order; so is a full multi-class weekend.

• Send the artwork and the class list. A vector logo is ideal, and the class names should read exactly as the announcer will say them.
• Approve a proof. Design work and the proof are free, and the proof is where spellings, placings and sponsor marks get checked.
• Ground shipping is free on acrylic plate orders. Ask us for current lead times when you have a date, so the delivery window is confirmed rather than assumed.

For a full award programme rather than a single format, our products covers medallions, pins, wood plaques and fully custom builds alongside acrylic.

The acrylic styles in one place

These were previously separate pages and now live here, because they are finishes of one product rather than different products.

• Gloss. The standard clear high-gloss face. Colour sits behind it, so the print cannot scuff off the front.
• Printed. Full-colour graphics across the whole face — photography, gradients and detailed club marks all reproduce.
• Layered. Two or more panels stacked to give depth, normally kept for overall winners so the top award reads differently from the class plates.
• Championship and series. The same artwork carried across rounds with only the round and placing changing, so a season looks like one programme.
• Logo-led. The outline cut to the shape of a club or series mark rather than a rectangle.
• Bulk. High-count orders for large fields, where the per-piece cost matters more than the format.