How To Design A Medal

There are many reasons you might want to design a medal; it could be for a football tournament, awards season at a local high school, or even just to thank employees for their hard work. Whatever the reason, designing a medal is a fun and easy process – if you know how to do it. So if you’re wondering how to design a medal, simply read on to find out.

The design of a medal consists of more elements than you think. It isn’t a simple case of slapping on a logo or title on; more so, a medal should be reflective of the atmosphere and stature of the event or reason it’s being awarded.

There’s a reason why the Olympics medals are always so distinctive – they reflect the culture and people of the city hosting the events that year.

Key Information

Two of the elements you should always aim to include on the design of your medal is the date and name of the event that the medals are being awarded at.

This is so receivers of the medal can easily remember what the medal is commemorating, as well as it providing useful publicity for the event should there be spectators or news outlets taking photographs, or if the medal is being displayed publicly.

Logo

If possible, you should always aim to include a logo or other relevant image. This adds to the attractiveness of the medal overall and again helps to distinguish why the medal was awarded.

If the medal is for a recurring event, future participants are more likely to be persuaded to enter if they know the rewards are appealing to look at, so it’s a win-win situation.

Themes

Particularly popular on sporting and academic medals is the implementation of a theme. This could be something as simple as a pencil emblem for an Achievement in English award, or the silhouette of a runner following a 100m sprint race.

Whatever it is, the use of a recurring theme throughout the design elements of a medal really helps to tie it all together, resulting in a more polished and professional-looking design.

Shape

Although the iconic medal shape is the circle, medals can come in many shapes and sizes and so this is another factor you should consider. Depending on the nature of the event, you might feel that a rectangular-shaped medal is more suitable, or else something unusual such as octagonal or star-shaped design, particularly to denote different achievement levels.

There are also year-on-year medal shape trends that you might want to consider by doing some brief research into what’s current at the time of the medal design.

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