On the night of the ceremony nobody looks at the polished edge or the thickness of the acrylic. Everybody looks at whether their name is spelled right.
And in a big batch the risk is not in the shop. It is in the path the list travels before it gets there.
Where the errors come from
The list starts in the payroll system, moves to a spreadsheet, someone adds titles, someone else fixes accents, and it arrives by email as version three. Or version four, which somebody sent later.
Along the way accents disappear, names get duplicated and the nickname everyone uses for one person sneaks in.
One list, one column per field
The simplest thing helps most: one sheet with a column for the name, one for the title and one for the inscription, exactly as they should appear. No merged cells and no notes in the margin.
And one person who locks it. When two departments send corrections separately, one of them gets lost.
What we do on our side
The text on every piece comes straight from your list, never retyped. We send a digital proof before production, and when the batch is done we check each piece against the list before packing.
If the date is tight, lock the list first and refine the design after: a design gets approved in a day, a list sometimes takes a week.
When to lock the list
Count back from the event: delivery, a few days of margin, production and proof approval. The list has to be locked before production starts, not on delivery day.
If the event is in December, lock it by mid November. After that date every correction stops being a spreadsheet cell and becomes a piece that has to be remade.
How long does a batch take?
It depends on the design and quantity, but a typical event batch ships in under two weeks. With your event date we give you a written delivery date.
What if someone joins the list at the last minute?
We can add a single piece. Let us know as soon as you know and we produce it separately.
Can you ship to the US?
Yes. We have shipped awards as far as Illinois, and deliver regularly to San Diego, Chula Vista and Otay Mesa.