Exploring the Possibilities of Custom Lucite Award Designs

“Custom Lucite” is a term that’s been subject to a good deal of misuse and confusion. Some vendors offer “custom” Lucites, especially “custom Lucite awards”, with promises of off-the-shelf availability and next-day shipment. But if these vendors are truly able to fulfill your “custom” order merely by plucking a piece off a factory shelf, just how custom could the design really be?

These “custom” creations are, in fact, just mass-produced, prefabricated, lookalike stock pieces. These vendors would argue, of course, that the customization element comes in the form of personalized engraving.

But that’s a pretty low bar when it comes to meeting common expectations of what constitutes a custom product.

After all, five minutes after your employee’s years-of-service award is taken from the shelf and engraved, that same piece could be used for a “custom” sales award for some entirely different individual—at an entirely different organization.

Representing custom designs this way is obviously misleading. But beyond that, it also does a disservice to a material that’s as versatile and truly capable of customization as Lucite is.

(And the most compelling evidence of that versatility is the sheer range of uses for Lucite. They go well beyond custom awards, and include far-flung applications such as jewelry, furniture, and even handbags.)

This post explores some of the many ways Lucite can be customized for awards—and not just in the superficial sense of merely changing “personalizations”.

Key Areas of Custom Lucite Award Customization

There are a number of materials that might be suitable for the customized award you have in mind. Elsewhere we’ve discussed, for example, the differences between Lucite and acrylic, Lucite and resin, and Lucite vs. crystal.

Again, in this post we’re just focusing on the advantages of Lucite—and they can be considerable. They include:

Color Matching

Color matching tends to be underestimated as a design consideration. But branding is (or should be) a crucial factor is organizational awards. Awards recognize success; but they also offer a prime opportunity to celebrate and adavnce your organizational brand and mission.

Organizational awards are not only about recognition. They’re also offer a crucial branding opportunity for an organization. Lucite furthers this branding element by enabling precise matching of logo colors.

And even if your company or organization doesn’t have strict branding guidelines, you may want your custom award to incorporate your precise logo colors—and not just an approximation. Whatever its other virtues, crystal, for example, doesn’t allow for accurate PMS color matching.

Top view of a jug design celebrating the 30th anniversary of a water delivery company. The capacity of Lucite to capture shapes is highlighted in the ribbing along the bottle’s sides, as well as the contours at its top.

Versatility in Shapes

Here again, crystal vendors have vastly increased their customization capabilities in recent years. But crystal still doesn’t approach Lucite in its ability to render more complex shapes (especially logos and products).

A custom Lucite award recognizing members of a team responsible for a new surgical implant. The allure of this piece is that it incorporates the actual device they designed and developed.

Potential for Embedment

Acrylic is the only material that allows for the embedment of objects, and among those acrylics, Lucite offers the best means of showcasing those objects.

There are a variety of award designs that make use of a custom Lucite embedment. These include, for instance, awards recognizing team members responsible for the development of a new drug—and incorporating a vial of that actual drug to celebrate its approval by the FDA or other regulatory clearance.

Durability

Lucite is a highly resilient material. That makes it far less susceptible than, say, crystal or resin to chipping and breakage. But there is another dimension to this durability. Truly custom awards, unlike interchangeable mementos, tend to have special resonance and perceived value for recipients.

Why is that important?

It means, importantly, that those recipients tend to both value and hold on to custom awards. We can vouch for this, having routinely replaced over the years custom Lucite awards and deal toys sometimes decades old). Also, having an award that’s transportable, that can survive unscathed a number of moves from job to job and office to office (or from office to home) can be a real selling point.

Custom Lucite at The Corporate Presence

Make no mistake. This post isn’t intended to disparage more standard Lucite designs. At The Corporate Presence, we have been providing custom Lucite designs in standard geometric shapes for over 40 years.

But even with the most “basic” shapes, we often find ways to enliven the designs and give them more cachet. And at no time do we fulfill Lucite orders simply by grabbing items off a factory shelf—and worse, trying to pass them off as “custom”.

Keep in mind that custom Lucite may ultimately prove not to be the right material for your project. But whatever you have in mind, we can guide you to a design appropriate for your budget, timeline, and preferences. Tap our experience and expertise. 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.