Award Shield Designs: Shapes, Wording, Materials and Prices
Nearly 20,000 people a month search Google for some version of "shield design" in Pakistan, and most of them are not ready to buy anything. They have been handed a job — organise the shields for the seminar, the sports day, the farewell — and they want to see what a shield is supposed to look like before they commit to one.
This page is that. What the shapes are, what goes on the front, what the wording should say, what each material costs, and the mistakes that get made often enough to be worth naming.
The four shapes almost everyone chooses
The classic shield outline. Flat-topped, tapering to a point or a curve at the bottom, sometimes with small wings or a crest at the shoulders. This is what people picture when they say "shield", and it is still what most Pakistani organisations order. It reads as official without anyone having to think about it.
The rectangle or plaque. A straight rectangle, usually vertical, sometimes on a small stand. Cleaner and more modern, and it gives you the most usable space for text, which matters if the wording runs long — appreciation letters, long-service citations, inauguration plaques.
The circle. A disc, often with a cut-out or a contrasting back panel. Circles suit a logo-led design where the crest is the main event and the text is secondary. They look expensive for what they cost.
The custom cut. Acrylic can be cut to any outline — a star, a hexagon, a crescent, the silhouette of your own logo, a building, a book. If you have a shape in mind, a sketch on WhatsApp is enough to start from. On a reasonable quantity the cutting costs no more than a standard shape.
What actually goes on the front
Almost every award shield carries the same six elements, in roughly this order from top to bottom:
- The organisation's logo or crest, at the top, centred. This is the element people get wrong most often — see the artwork note below.
- The organisation's name, if it is not already legible inside the logo.
- The award title — "Certificate of Appreciation", "Best Teacher 2026", "Long Service Award", "Shield of Honour".
- The recipient's name, larger than everything around it. This is the line the person will look at for the next twenty years.
- The reason, in one or two lines. "In recognition of ten years of dedicated service." Keep it short; a shield is not a certificate.
- The date, and a signature line if it is being presented formally by a named person.
A useful test: if you cannot read the recipient's name from three metres away, the design has too much on it. Cut something.
Choosing the material
Acrylic — the default, and usually the right answer
Acrylic is what most shields in Pakistan are made from. It takes full-colour UV printing, so your logo comes out exactly as your brand file has it, including gradients. It does not chip the way glass does when it goes into a bag at the end of an event. And it is the cheapest way to get something that looks properly made.
The variable that matters is thickness. At 6mm a shield is light and fine for a school prize. At 8mm it starts to feel substantial. At 12mm and 25mm it has real weight and a visible polished edge, and it lands differently when it is handed over in front of a room. Prices run from about Rs 2,000 for a standard 5x7 or 6x8 inch shield to Rs 14,999 for a 25mm piece.
Wood — for anything formal
A wooden shield reads as more serious. It is what gets ordered for retirements, long-service awards and inaugurations, and it is the right choice when the recipient is senior enough that the piece needs to look like it cost something.
Wooden shields are built one of three ways: a shaped wooden back carrying an engraved brass or metal plate (the most traditional, and what most people picture); a wooden back with a UV-printed acrylic front panel (colour logo, wooden frame); or laser engraving cut directly into the wood (cleanest and most modern). Standard sizes start around Rs 2,000; larger UV-printed shields and gold-plated executive pieces in presentation boxes run to about Rs 12,500.
Crystal and glass — for executive and international awards
Crystal columns, triangles and open-book shapes, laser engraved internally or on the surface. These are the pieces for board-level awards and anything going to a visiting delegation. Roughly Rs 6,500 to Rs 12,500. They photograph beautifully and they chip if dropped, so budget for a presentation box.
Metal — the most durable
Metal shields with stands, and gold-plated shields in wooden boxes, from around Rs 8,850. Nothing survives handling better.
Sizes, and which one to order
The two standard shield sizes in Pakistan are 5x7 inches and 6x8 inches, and both are priced the same by most makers, including us. 6x8 is the safer default — 5x7 can look small on a table of twenty.
Beyond that: 12x8 inch shields for the one senior award in a batch, and souvenir pieces of 18 to 19 inches for genuinely large presentations, such as an inauguration or a foundation stone commemoration.
Wording that works
Some patterns that read well, in the order they appear on the shield:
- Certificate of Appreciation · Presented to · [Name] · In recognition of outstanding contribution to [department] · [Date]
- Shield of Honour · [Name] · For 15 Years of Dedicated Service · [Organisation] · [Date]
- Best Teacher 2026 · [Name] · Presented by [School] on Annual Prize Day
- 1st Position · [Event] · [Name] · [School] Sports Gala [Year]
- In Grateful Appreciation · [Name] · On the occasion of retirement after 32 years of service
Two things to avoid. Do not put a long paragraph on a shield — if the citation runs to five lines it belongs on a certificate, with the shield carrying the headline. And be careful with honorifics: in Pakistan, getting somebody's title wrong on a permanent object is noticed. Ask, rather than guess.
Four mistakes worth avoiding
A logo pulled off a website. This is the single most common problem. An image saved from a web page is around 72 dpi, which prints as a blurry, jagged version of your crest on something meant to last. Send the original file — AI, EPS, PDF, CDR, or a PNG at least 1,000 pixels across. If all you have is the website version, tell us and we will redraw it, at no charge.
Spelling checked once. A misspelled name on an engraved shield cannot be fixed; the piece is remade. Read the proof out loud, and get one other person to read it. We send a digital proof before anything is cut or engraved precisely because this is the failure that matters.
Ordering too late. Shields take 3 to 7 working days to make after you approve the proof, then 3 to 7 working days with the courier. An event three weeks out is comfortable. An event eight days out is a gamble. Tell us the date and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable rather than take the order and hope.
Mixed designs in one batch. If you are ordering twenty shields for one event, use one design and change only the names. A table of matching shields looks like an institution; a table of different shields looks like whatever was in stock.
Ordering more than a few
Most shield orders are quantities — twenty for a seminar, sixty medals for a sports day. Bulk pricing depends on quantity, material and artwork, so we quote rather than publish a table. Message us on WhatsApp with what you need and roughly when you need it. Artwork and logo setup is done once and reused across the whole batch at no extra cost, which is why the per-unit price drops quickly with volume.
Where to go next
- All award shields — the full range, 5x7 and 6x8 upward
- Acrylic shields — 6mm to 25mm, printed and engraved
- Wooden shields — engraved brass plates and UV-printed panels
- Trophies — acrylic stars, crystal columns, cup sets
- Medals — gold and silver with ribbons, from Rs 1,799
Everything is made to order in our own workshop in Rawalpindi. Rs 399 flat delivery, cash on delivery anywhere in Pakistan, and a digital proof for your approval before anything is made.