Custom Signage & Motivational Awards

CNCROi.com has completed a number of custom signage projects including one for of the biggest aviation companies in the world! (You won’t see it here, NDA).

In the last blog post, I showed a “simple” award that was made out of one material, 6 mm blue acrylic with engraved words, this time around, we’ll kick it up a notch and do a 3 color acrylic award with a bit more detail and thought put into it.

Why employees leave a company

There are many reasons why an employee leaves a company from managerial problems, lack of a clear career path, politics, stifling bureaucracy, finding their work meaningless and NO RECOGNITION. I’ve lost track of companies that STILL give out these types of awards.

Yes, we can do that too, just like EVERY trophy shop does currently, but I refuse to. There is a reason why most trophy shops are seen in the same light as used car salesman.

You know, you’ve literally seen these copy/paste recognition or motivational awards in EVERY office, I’ve talked a lot of employees and this is what they’ve used because it’s easy and cheap. Hey, let’s motivate our sales department with easy and cheap motivational awards! The award industry makes their bread and butter with these things, get a shipment from China, stick it in the laser or sand blaster, put a name and logo and you’ve made a chunk of easy money.

I went to the Awards and Recognition Association a few months back in Las Vegas and this is what most booths were pushing, and guess what, it’s the same stuff they were pushing 30 years ago! The novelty has not only worn off in the industry but also with employees! Over at CNCKing.com where I wear another hat, it’s the same thing with laser guys, they DO some of these but simply aren’t proud that they are but it’s what the customer wants and it’s easy money.

CUSTOM Motivational Awards

Whether you want a flat 2D award like the above or something completely different that’s 3D with moving parts etc… CNCROi.com is in a very unique position to custom build your motivational awards to include both your company branding and unique aspects of the person it’s being given to. Our work is 100% custom and you don’t need to come-up with your own ideas (though it’s a great start), we’ll walk you through the process and get that motivational award to you as promised. For us, it’s easier making custom things than it is to grab off the shelf components and putting your name on it… it’s more fun too!

Let’s take a look at how this award was made with our Austrian Trotec Speedy 400 flexx, to change things up watch the video first for context.

Step 1: Cutting & Engraving Smoked Acrylic

CNCROi.com has a wide variety of materials to do just about anything with, in this case, I was looking at making a sample that shows the versatility and precision of our CNC laser.

As this piece was going to have lots of engraving, it’s best to just engrave it without masking as it’s a bigger pain to remove it after than the small clean-up needed if it isn’t used.

The steps are always the same, do your engraving first then cut the inner lines than outer.

The white powder you see is what is left after the acrylic on the surface is vaporized. It’s easily removed.

Once the piece is done being cut, it’s time to move onto the backing aspect of this custom job.

Step 2: Cutting Transparent Acrylic

The reason for putting on a transparent backing to this custom acrylic sign or award is for added strength and to hold everything together. My sample case has things moving around in it and it’s a tough environment, this needed to stand-up to road and customer bumps.

In this case, I just took the masking off after the cutting was done.

As there was no engraving, this is more efficient than doing things the other way around.

The transparent backing is now done!

Step 3: Cutting White Acrylic

I wanted this project to have contrasting colors of the Canadian flag, so a white backing with red maple leaf was needed. The smoky acrylic is used to augment and increase the “that’s neat” factor. Any of these acrylics could have easily been done using different thicknesses, colors and transparencies.

Step 4: Cutting & Engraving Red Acrylic

The maple leaf needed to have some engraving details, so again I took the front mask off to speed things up. What’s really nice about this approach is that acrylic can also be easily paint filled so if I wanted even more contrast, using white acrylic paint to fill the engraving would have worked fine… if this wasn’t going to be moving all over the place.

Step 5: Putting it all together

We used a special acrylic bonding agent, it’s quick and very strong but beforehand, you want to do a dry run!

This acrylic project worked perfectly, time to clean it up!

Where are the custom signs?

Well, see the creativity in these motivational awards? We can do the same with signage, there really isn’t any distinction other than purpose… we can just as easily create custom business cards to match your sign and awards! When you look in the marketplace, you see the SIGN guys (indoor, outdoor), the AWARD guys (mostly cheap imports from China or India sand blasted), the PRINT guys (business cards, letterheads… ) and so forth but in reality, they are all one in the same.

CNCROi.com can custom cut dies out of paper, make seals, rubber stamps just like the PRINT guys, we can make custom motivational awards BETTER than the AWARD guys and the SIGN guys, want something 3 meters long made out of stainless steel with cutouts? Yep, we can do that for indoor or out! There is so much cross-pollination possible between them and with our expertise, we can help customize your offerings from each. We do not do color printing (though we do stamp foil) so we of course work with the print guys too!

Want something custom? Contact CNCROi.com right now!