Author: David Parry

Most corporate award ideas are anything but inspired. Which isn’t surprising. A quick online search will show that corporate awards tend to cluster around two very different and distinct categories.

On one hand, you’re likely to see ready-made, mass-produced awards that might seem all too familiar. These include the same menu of generic, formulaic designs that you tend to see on any number of vendor sites. After sifting through the 173rd image of the exact same crystal eagle or star or Lucite #1 numeral, you may understandably be asking a simple question.

Aren’t there any other options for recognizing achievement within your company or organization?

There are. But you may find the alternatives just as frustrating and unappealing.

Because the same search will also turn up an entirely different genre, these pieces consist mainly of weirdly contorted crystal and metal creations with equally pretentious names. These designs might very well be appropriate as decorative additions to your living or dining room, but what exactly do they have to do with your company—and, more significantly, the employees you’re hoping to honor? As many people loathe these kinds of pieces as like them. Do you really want to honor someone with something so potentially polarizing?

Isn’t there some sort of middle ground here?

Is it possible, for instance, to have corporate awards that are customized in ways that would actually be meaningful? Perhaps something tailored after your company or organization’s logo or its mission? Or the specific occasion or accomplishment being honored? Or something else that would potentially resonate with your recipients and contribute to the award’s perceived value?

Corporate Award Ideas That Aren’t Simply Recycled

The shortcoming of most corporate awards is that they convey (or reflect) absolutely nothing about the organizations bestowing them. They’re completely interchangeable.

Most of these awards are so lacking in identity that they could be from virtually any company—in any industry.

Corporate awards are obviously intended to honor the dedication, commitment, and achievements of your employees. However, they also provide another opportunity, one that is directly connected to this primary purpose.

Corporate awards also provide an opportunity to showcase what sets your company apart. It’s an opportunity to define your organization’s identity: to assert your organization’s core values and brand, and make clear their connection to the individuals and accomplishments that are being honored.

Awards that do this also tend to have far greater cachet and resonance among recipients.

5 Standout Corporate Award Ideas

The Golden Saw Award

For Georgia-based Swift Straw, this distinctive crystal award visually represents its corporate mission (providing pine straw and mulch for use by landscapers nationwide). But it also echoes another aspect of the company’s mission. The saw blade design with sharpened teeth plays off the concept of honing and refining skills, a theme that is central to the company’s culture of innovation. It also reflects Swift Straw’s commitment to disrupt and modernize a once-staid industry.

KFC Bucket Award

Granted, not every company is lucky enough to be able to leverage as a design feature something as instantly recognizable as the KFC bucket. On the other hand, your award design might be able to play off something that already has that level of familiarity among your employees—the potential group of recipients. Also keep in mind that effective corporate award ideas should raise awareness of your brand going forward, something the Golden Saw award above has made clear.

The Fist Bump Award

There are innumerable ready-made, off-the-shelf pieces potentially available for this custom award. (Just think, for instance, of the countless “thumbs-up” awards you may have seen online). What makes this such a successful signature award is that it playfully brings into focus the mission of the organization: the North American Blueberry Council.

Immunogen Product Development Award

This Lucite award, recognizing team members instrumental in gaining FDA approval for an ovarian cancer drug, goes beyond a mere visual reference to a product. It incorporates the actual product. Embedded within the Lucite is a vial containing Elahere.

Learning Resources Years-of-Service Award

This award obviously isn’t the first to take inspiration from an organizational logo. What is appealing about this particular crystal design is just how simply and seamlessly that logo is integrated into the design, dovetailing unobtrusively with the shape of the piece. As a category, years-of-service awards tend to be dominated by cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf pieces.

By contrast, this design demonstrates that corporate award ideas don’t have to spring from some involved, “artsy” vision. Like this piece, a truly custom award can be understated, and yet still further a company or organization’s brand.

Corporate Award Ideas from the Corporate Presence

The awards above represent different companies and industries and also vary in the underlying achievements they honor. They also differ in size and in the materials they’re made from.

The one common denominator, however, is that they all depart from the mainstream, default, cookie-cutter awards readily available online. And they all make statements, whether subtly or forcefully, about the organizations they represent–and the members of those organizations they have been chosen to be honored.

At The Corporate Presence, we’ve learned over the course of 40+ years that there will be times when you need to source an off-the-shelf award. That may be because you only need one of two pieces, or you need them in a matter of days.

But beyond those special circumstances, consider reaching out to us when your next award opportunity looms. We can help you take full advantage in designing and producing a truly signature award design that will not only reflect your culture but also resonate with those being honored.

Get the design process started. Reach out to us today.

David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy for The Corporate Presence, and for Prestige Custom Awards, a designer and provider of custom awards, ranging from creative employee and client recognition pieces to the N.F.L. Commissioner’s Awards, and ESPN’s ESPY awards.

3D crystal etching: it’s an effect that you may not be familiar with—at least by name. And to the extent you might already be familiar with the technique, you may not have liked what you’ve seen.

Most people associate this type of internal laser etching with two very different applications. You may have seen it used to render within crystal highly detailed photographs of family members, and especially, beloved pets.

These designs tend to be polarizing. Some people find these pieces captivating. Others consider them garish, and even slightly creepy.

On the other hand, something very different might also come to mind when you see this kind of 3d crystal etching. You might instead associate it with other standard trinkets on display at souvenir shops internationally. Depending on the given location, the particular offering might be a laser-etched rendering in a crystal deal toy of the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, or the Parthenon. As a result, you might regard the pieces showcasing this effect as you would, say, a souvenir snowglobe: mass-produced, interchangeable, or just plain cheap.

All of this is unfortunate since 3D crystal etching is a technique that can add considerable cachet and perceived value to a custom award or deal toy.

This post will provide more detail on this effect. It will also consider whether it might be an appropriate design option for your particular project.

What is 3D Etching in Crystal?

Internal laser engraving, also known as subsurface laser etching, involves rendering text or artwork under the surface of a piece of crystal, rather than on its exterior. Unlike traditional engraving methods that cut directly into the outer surface, this technique creates intricate, three-dimensional designs inside the crystal without disturbing its smooth, glossy surface.

Key Benefits of 3D Etching Crystal

• Premium Aesthetic: The internal depth and floating effect give the design a sophisticated, 3D look
• Durability: Since the engraving is within the crystal, it’s protected from wear and tear, making it ideal for items that are likely to be prominently displayed, like deal toys or corporate awards.
• Precision: Laser technology ensures ultra-fine details, enabling complex and intricate designs that are visually compelling.
• Customization: You can engrave a wide variety of artwork to create designs for an array of occasions.

What Kinds of Designs are Best Suited for 3D Etching?

Posts on design techniques tend to come with a lot of breezy, all-purpose prescriptions. You’re likely to hear that there the particular effect under discussion offers “infinite design possibilities”, and that you’re “limited only by your imagination”.

That may be the case. That said, there are still sectors and design elements that seem especially suited for 3D etching crystal.

Real Estate

Because of its ability to render details so precisely, 3D etching is ideally suited to commemorating events in the real estate sector. These might include crystal designs celebrating groundbreakings or building dedications. They might also include deal toys marking transactions such as construction financings or property acquisitions.

Whatever the occasion, a precise 3D rendering of the completed building project or plan can have tremendous perceived value. This kind of highly customized design stands in stark contrast to generic, all-purpose commemoratives.

Product-Themed Designs

For any number of reasons, a product may be the centerpiece of the design you have in mind. You may be celebrating the launch of that product. Or the product may simply be central to the brand of whatever company is the subject of your deal toy.

Here again, 3D crystal etching has the capacity to replicate precise details that are crucial. It can capture the design features that make the product distinctive and identifiable.

In the deal toy shown above, for instance, the transaction involves a manufacturer of fabrics for the auto industry, particularly for use in car seats and door panels. The lasered artwork is detailed enough to capture the stitching patterns on the seats.

Brand Mascots

For similar reasons, lasering is also ideal for tombstones and awards showcasing brand mascots. The Lancer piece shown at the top of this post is a great example. The lasered rendering of the knight and his horse captures an extraordinary degree of detail. It does justice to a valued corporate symbol.

Subtle Touches

Finally, you might want to keep lasering in mind when you want to add a design feature in a more understated, subdued way. One example involves the size of the Blackstone fund whose launch is celebrated in the crystal piece above. Rather than being billboarded, the amount appears as a background element that’s not immediately noticeable.

What Will I Need to Provide for a 3D Etching Project?

The detailed nature of the lasering process will require more from you than the typical deal toy or award project. Your vendor can discuss the specific requirements for your project. You should be prepared, though, to provide either a high-resolution digital image or a 3D model of the design you have in mind. There might be other workarounds for rendering your artwork three-dimensionally, but here again, this will depend on the specifics of your project.

You should also recognize the meticulous attention that rendering the 3D artwork that will require. Depending again on your particular project, this will add to your timeline. Also, keep in mind that you will most likely want to see a sample before proceeding with a final order. All of this should suggest that 3D crystal etching is not a process suited to rush orders or extremely tight time frames.

3D Crystal Etching at The Corporate Presence

At The Corporate Presence, we’ve been handling deal toy and award designs involving 3D crystal etching for over 40 years. We have the expertise to ensure that these orders proceed smoothly. As always, we also have the insight to let you know when lasering may not be an appropriate option for your project. That might be for aesthetic reasons, or simply because your deadline would make this kind of process too time-consuming or impractical. Whatever the circumstances, you can rely on us to provide you with the benefit of our design and production experience. Get your project started. Reach out to us today.

Currency-themed deal toys can play off a variety of creative options, including national symbols, maps, and flags. Currency nicknames have also been a rich source of ideas for commemorating currency-themed transactions.  Over the years, we’ve based creative deal toy designs, for instance, on such colorful issue names as “Samurai” bonds, “Rembrandt”, and “Dragon” bonds.

And also, “Kimchi”, “Bulldog”, “Kangaroo”, “Maple”, and “Yankee” bonds.

But international bonds represent only some of the financial transactions in which currency and money-based themes offer great design options. Currency themes can come into play in any number of cross-border transactions, international corporate issues, “green” bonds, cryptocurrency deals, as well as swaps.

The gallery below provides a small sampling of currency-related tombstone designs.

Beyond these, we’ve provided below five potential ideas and springboards for any deal toy project in which currency, or currencies, provide potential design inspirations.

Deal Toys Based on Currency Symbols

Including a dollar, yen, euro etc. symbol in a design doesn’t seem especially imaginative or inspired. That said, there are still any number of innovative ways of incorporating symbols in designs.

The tombstone design shown below, for example, cleverly manages to celebrate three separate bond issues denominated in two different currencies.

Flag-Inspired Tombstone Designs

Flags are yet another obvious source of design ideas for these transactions. That said, flag motifs can appear in any number of creative and unexpected ways.

For instance, the Jaguar XKB shown below, a quintessentially British car and brand, was customized with a Union Jack in two “Austin Powers” movies. It provides the perfect accompaniment to the pound issue commemorated here.

Deal Toys Inspired by Maps

As with flags, maps themes are a predictable source of design elements for recognizing currency-based transactions. Here again, there are countless ways they can be incorporated into a design.

Nickname-Inspired Deal Toys

The nicknames of individual currencies, either singly or when paired with another monetary unit, can unleash a number of creative possibilities. We listed a number of currency nicknames already. Add to that, to name just a few, Kiwi, Loonie, Ninja, Chief, and Gopher.

The sword-themed design shown above commemorates a Samurai Bond issue. The deal toy below, on the other hand, recognizes a so-called Din Sum Bond issue.

Using Actual Currency in Designs

Using actual currency in a deal toy also seems like a fairly obvious design option. There are several ways to make currency the centerpiece of a design.

Lucite embedments of coins are one option. You should be aware, though, that this option poses occasional practical and logistical problems. Assembling a sufficient number of coins in presentable condition can be time-consuming, and shipping those coins could be further complicated by customs restrictions. Depending on the currencies and countries involved, customs restrictions might also disrupt the shipment of the finished design incorporating a real coin.

A safer and less stressful route typically involves incorporating images of actual currency notes. Again, this might seem like a fairly obvious starting point. But here again, there are a number of qualitative factors involved.  There are a number of both straightforward and complex designs incorporating currency notes.

The design below isn’t especially elaborate; on the other hand, the modified wedge shape is unusual enough to make the Paraguayan note its centerpiece in a compelling and eye-catching way.

The design shown at the very top of this post also plays off a currency image but is captivating for an entirely different reason.

The Lucite piece celebrates euro-denominated bonds issued by American consumer goods company Kellogg’s. The design creatively combines these two deal elements through the artwork of the company’s popular brand mascot for its Keebler cookies line (Ernie the Elf), fanning a wad of euro notes.

Getting Your Deal Toy Project Started

At The Corporate Presence, we pride ourselves on our experience and expertise in handling a range of deal toy projects. Over the past 30+ years, our talented design staff has put a creative spin on a range of currency-related projects internationally.

If you’re looking for more tombstone ideas along the line so national themes, be sure to check out our Cross-Border and International Deal Toys galleries.

And at any time, feel free to contact us to get started on your currency-based deal toy—or any tombstone or award project—and bring your vision to life.

It’s no wonder that there are abundant opportunities for corporate gifting for pharma companies. The very nature of the industry tends to lend itself to seemingly endless milestones and achievements that could potentially be commemorated. 

The global pandemic only heightened our awareness of these unique characteristics of the pharmaceutical industry. These industry hallmarks contribute to a culture that must continually nurture and recognize extraordinary achievement.

More specifically, those factors include the industry’s extensive and time-sensitive product pipelines and portfolios. They also include disproportionate investments in research and reliance on public-private collaborations.

And perhaps most of all, they include another constant: regulatory hurdles and thresholds.

Corporate Gifting for Pharma Companies

This post provides more specific examples of the types of gifting opportunities that regularly prompt clients in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries to reach out to us and help them recognize and reward innovation and achievement.

1. FDA Approvals

FDA approvals mark the culmination of a rigorous process, and, accordingly, are among the most common reasons for recognition gifts and awards among pharma companies. 

There are a number of ways firms have chosen to celebrate these milestones. Some firms prefer to distribute more classic, traditional crystal designs. 

Gifts incorporating vials, on the other hand, also have considerable appeal.

These gifts tend to have tremendous cachet among recipients and stakeholders because they are such a departure from the standard, generic fare so often seen in corporate gifting. They incorporate something truly unique: an actual vial of the actual drug.

The Lucite piece below, for example, marks FDA approval of a treatment for chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression.

Drug vial embedments in Lucite is a technique for which we’ve developed particular expertise over 40+ years.

The process may be relatively straightforward, but it can actually involve a number of unanticipated challenges. One particular challenge, for instance, involves something as seemingly basic as the proper rendering and positioning of the drug label on the vial prior to embedment.

2. Preclinical and Clinical Trials

Here again, there are several stages at which teams can be acknowledged. The crystal piece below, for instance, recognizes team members at the first-patient-dosed (FIH) stage of trials of LunAIRo.

3. Research Collaborations

Research collaborations occur commonly between pharmaceutical firms, between private and public entities, and in conjunction with various academic institutions. Joint research projects of this sort provide an opportunity to recognize members of each participating team.

Among the many research partnerships, we have helped to commemorate have been a pharmaceutical-biotech collaboration focused on cancer metabolism, and another aimed at advances in stem cell research.

4. Joint Ventures

As with research collaborations, joint ventures can vary widely both in terms of subject matter and the parties involved. One joint venture we helped commemorate, for instance, involved teams from a pharmaceutical company and a technology company. The teams had united to develop a mobile app for use by patients with schizophrenia. 

5. Product Introductions

Gifts and recognition pieces can be used to commemorate a number of separate milestones, such as the submission of a New Drug Application (NDA) or the actual commercialization of the drug or product.

The crystal piece below celebrates the NDA of a migraine treatment.

6. Licensing, Royalty, & Commercialization Agreements

Licensing, commercialization, and royalty agreements are obviously more squarely on the business side of the pharmaceutical industry. But just as obviously, they’re crucial to industry players. 

Licensing and commercialization agreements can be critical to all pharmaceutical companies. But they can be especially indispensable to smaller biotech and biopharmaceutical firms attempting to bring more novel and financially speculative treatments to market.

Among the many agreements we’ve have provided gifts for recently was one involving global rights for gout treatment and another for a blood cancer drug.

Because of the cross-border nature of many of these agreements, these gifts, significantly, had to have appeal to recipients in different countries, representing different cultures and aesthetics.

The gallery below highlights some of the many gifts and commemoratives we’ve designed to celebrate these agreements.

7. Financings and Capital Raises

These opportunities tend to arise among the industry’s smaller players, as in its biotech and biopharmaceutical segments.

One example is the gift shown here to mark Series B funding for Texas-based OncoNano. The funds were applied to clinical trials of the company’s imaging agent in detecting cancerous tissue. (As you can see, the imaging effect became the centerpiece of the highly customized gift designed to mark the occasion).

Corporate Gifting for Pharma Companies and The Corporate Presence

The Corporate Presence has been providing custom recognition awards and gifts to a number of industries, including pharmaceuticals, for over 40 years.

One of the advantages of beginning your search with us is that we not only offer you extensive experience and expertise in the industry. 

We also, importantly, can provide you the benefit of a huge archive of pharma-related custom awards and gifts via our website. Seeing the kinds of designs your peer companies and organizations have already done might provide inspiration for your project. Reach out to us and get your gift or award project started.

David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy for The Corporate Presence, and for Prestige Custom Awards, a designer and provider of custom corporate awards ranging from creative employee and client recognition pieces to the N.F.L. Commissioner’s Awards, and ESPN’s ESPY awards.

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the frenzied finale of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. But more significantly, this week also marks the 5th anniversary of Project “Iron Fleet”, one of seven deal toys profiled below that memorably drew inspiration from a code name.

Code names unleash all sorts of creative possibilities for finance tombstones. A code name explains, for instance, how a pagoda-themed deal toy design came to commemorate an investment in a portfolio of non-performing mortgages—-based in Spain (see below).

Or how a tropical drink invented and popularized in Cuba could provide the inspiration for a tombstone commemorating a private equity deal—-in not-so-tropical Denmark.

Project Mojito, shown here, took its name from the dominant color of the white rum and lime juice cocktail typically festooned with mint.  More significantly here, it also pays tribute to the green policies and practices of the company acquired in the deal:  Copenhagen-based electrical supplier, Modstrøm Danmark.

We’ve previously written about code names as a rich source of creative ideas for financial tombstones.

And yes, having a fun, evocative code name to work with does help.

But if Project Mojito had instead been dubbed Project Anchovies or Project Kale, memorable tombstones probably still could’ve been designed for each.

That also holds true even when a particular code name is not only unoriginal but maybe even a little well-worn.

And this does happen: code names can tend to cluster around certain themes.

One 2020 article found that in the previous decade, Eagle ranked first among the ten most frequently chosen deal code names. (Rounding out the top ten, were Blue, Green, Falcon, Alpha, Diamond, Tiger, Titan, Apollo, and Panther.)

Whether your particular code name is totally unique and specific to your deal or is taken from a selection of past favorites, you’ll undoubtedly find some inspiration in the finance tombstones we’ve showcased here.

Code Names, Deals, and Finance Tombstones

So where do code names typically come from?

The purpose of code names is pretty self-evident: maintaining secrecy with respect to the parties and details of a deal, most often an M&A transaction.

That said, there are considerations that come into play in selecting an appropriate code name. Names have to be cryptic, but not impractical.

Approaching the topic from the unique perspective of a investment banker-turned-academic Scott Moeller once stressed a few initial considerations. In addition to being non-obvious, code names should also not risk offending the client.

They should also avoid being “too cute” or difficult to spell. So when it comes, for example, to composers—a frequently mined source of project names—he advises sticking to ones like Bach and Beethoven over Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov.

In 2019, EthosData brought some real analytics to the naming process. Based on a selection of 1,000 deals that had made use of its virtual data rooms, it found a far-flung range of selections, “from nearby buildings or mountains, to flowers, precious stones, and planets”.

The study also found a preference for “animals, colours, mythology and—for perhaps the less-concerned dealmakers amongst the group—any word starting with the letter ‘A’ .”

Taking all those parameters into account, EthosData found that the most commonly used code names in its sample were: Apollo, Blue, Sun, Victory, Galaxy, Sunflower, Omega, Jasmine, Emerald, Sunrise, Sapphire, Aurora, and Falcon.

And if all of this seems too time-consuming or daunting, you can always automate the process. Intralinks, for instance, offers a code name generator.

Code Name-Inspired Finance Tombstones

“Big Bang”

It’s hard to take issue with the use of the word “big” here.

The deal centered on the Tulsa-based energy company’s acquisition of all outstanding shares of a subsidiary, which was worth $11.7 billion. Add to that the three related, orbiting transactions commemorated here, and the total value of the deal reaches nearly $20 billion.

“Iron Fleet”

Pop culture provides especially fertile ground for code name ideas. Games of Thrones fans will recognize the nod to the Greyjoy’s star-crossed armada.

“Valkyrie”

Code names also tend to draw heavily from mythology, especially of the Greek and Roman variety. Valkyries, celebrated in everything from opera to epic verse to comic books and countless tatoos, derive from Old Norse legend.

“Barracuda”

Puzzle-piece Lucite designs are an effective way of celebrating a series of transactions, such as the acquisitions shown here (see top). What’s distinctive about this tombstone is that here is the puzzle pieces themselves form a unique shape.

(Just a note of clarification: ING U.S. is now Voya.)

“Symphony”

In contrast to the interlocking Barracuda design, this tombstone is crystal piece is relatively understated and straightforward—in keeping with the understated and straightforward code name that inspired it.

“Macchiato”

Another Lucite tombstone design. What gave this design its cachet was the use of actual macchiato beans—something that required some experience and expertise with the sometimes strange laws and properties of Lucite embedment.

This tombstone also illustrates how far from the actual subject matter of the deal a code name theme can take a design. Project Macchiato involved not coffee growers or retailers, but real estate.

But this kind of inside recognition is precisely the type of bond among deal participants that a tombstone seeks to commemorate (and, importantly, that outsiders examining that tombstone in an office, reception area, or conference room, tend to find most intriguing).

Project…..?

Dealmakers on the 2013 Berkshire Hathaway-Heinz deal, one of a number of Warren Buffett deals we have commemorated over the years, actually took things a step further. They employed multiple code names for the $23 billion transaction.

The chosen names reportedly included Hawk, Penguin, Goose, and Owl.

Were these names just arbitrary?

In its account of the deal, the New York Times shed some light on at least some of these selections. Penguin, the code name preferred by Heinz executives, was intended to recognize the local N.H.L franchise; Hawk, on the other hand, was favored by advisers on the acquisition side.

Get Creative with Your Finance Tombstone

Code names tend to be associated with M&A transactions, but whatever kind of deal you’re commemorating, you’ll probably want to explore a range of creative options. As the examples above illustrate, “creative” finance tombstones don’t have to be complex or extravagant.

At The Corporate Presence, we have over 40 years of experience in drawing on code names, or other specifics of your deal, to provide you—and your client–with the most effective, and memorable tombstone. Reach out to us today!

David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy for The Corporate Presence, and for Prestige Custom Awards, a designer and provider of custom corporate awards ranging from creative employee and client recognition pieces to the N.F.L. Commissioner’s Awards, and ESPN’s ESPY awards.

Will Ferrell and Frida Kahlo, along with three Ukrainian artists, a one-handed Yankees pitcher, a group of disgrutled Amazon workers, South Korean fisherwomen, Congolese CIA operatives, Sudanese revolutionaries, and 1970’s disco musicians, will all be appearing in downtown Manhattan during the month of November.

They’re all subjects of features and shorts showcased at DOC NYC, the 15th edition of what is now America’s largest documentary film festival.

The Corporate Presence/Prestige Custom Awards is proud once again to be providing awards for the event, whose honorees have included iconic filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Moore, and Sam Pollard, but also less familiar, emerging talents like Tanaz Eshaghian, Cecilia Aldarondo, and Steven Bognar.

Awards Providing a Preview of Oscar Winners

DOC NYC has also become a reliable indicator (and driving force) for eventual Oscar recognition. In 2023, 12 of the 15 films named to the Academy Award Documentary Feature Shortlist had previously been screened at the festival.

Heading into 2024, an astounding 53 of the last 60 Academy Award-nominated documentary features were first presented at the festival. Those Oscar winners include “O.J.: Made in America”, “Navalny”, “20 Feet From Stardom”, “Searching for Sugar Man”, and “Icarus”.

Recognizing Diversity and Breadth

The 2024 festival, which runs between November 13th-21st, will feature over 200 films. As in previous years, they will be noteworthy for the diversity of their subjects, their perspectives, their locales, and of the filmmakers themselves.

Among the subjects of films this year will be Eastern Himalayan moths, repatriated African artifacts, the Russian coal mafia, the evolution of Yacht Rock, an eclipsed stand-up comedy icon, a notorious punk rock drummer, and an embattled prime minister.

The DOC NYC Experience

But the cachet of DOC NYC goes beyond taking in new works. Its appeal has been described as “not only about seeing new films before everybody else does. It’s more about entering the conversation between actors, filmmakers, and film fans.”

The festival offers not only screenings but panel discussions, industry roundtables, case studies, live pitches, with Q & A opportunities with filmmakers.

As invaluable as that in-person experience can be, online screenings will also be available through December 1st.

Providing The DOC NYC Awards

The Corporate Presence/Prestige Custom Awards is honored to continue its association with DOC NYC. Along with the National Football League Commissioner’s Awards, and ESPN’s annual ESPY Awards, the festival is another prestigious event for which we provide custom awards.