All Star Awards Blog Posts

Creating print ready art is one of the best ways to help your custom printing, engraving, signage, apparel, or promotional product order come out clean and accurate.

Print ready artwork usually means your logo or design is supplied at the correct size, in the correct file type, with clean edges and enough resolution for the production method being used.

Vector artwork is often preferred because it can be scaled up or down without becoming blurry. Common vector file types include AI, EPS, SVG, and some PDF files.

For raster artwork, such as JPG or PNG files, high resolution is important. Low-resolution images may look fine on a screen but can appear fuzzy or pixelated when printed or engraved.

Before sending artwork, check that fonts are outlined when needed, colors are clearly identified, backgrounds are removed when appropriate, and the file matches the final layout as closely as possible.

If you are not sure whether your art is ready, All Star Awards can review your file and help guide you toward the best setup for your project.

Perpetual plaques are a great choice for recognizing ongoing achievements, annual winners, employee milestones, and team accomplishments year after year.

A perpetual plaque gives your organization a central place to display names, dates, departments, teams, champions, donors, or recipients over time.

They are commonly used for employee of the month programs, sales awards, fantasy football leagues, school honors, tournament winners, retirement recognition, and years of service programs.

One of the biggest benefits is that the main plaque can stay in place while new engraved plates are added as new recipients are recognized.

This makes perpetual plaques a practical and professional option for programs that continue every month, season, or year.

All Star Awards can help you choose a plaque style, layout, plate size, and engraving setup that fits your recognition program.

This Mother's Day, make your mom feel truly special with a personalized, laser-engraved gift from All Star Awards & Ad Specialties in Kansas City, Missouri.

Whether you bring in a custom item or choose from our selection of engravable gifts, our shop is dedicated to helping you create a meaningful and memorable present that celebrates the love and appreciation you have for Mom.

Personalized engraving adds a thoughtful touch because it turns a gift into a keepsake. Names, dates, short messages, artwork, logos, and special details can all help make the item feel unique.

If you are looking for a Mother's Day gift that feels personal, useful, and lasting, our team can help you choose the right item and engraving style.

Valentine's Day is a special day that is dedicated to celebrating love and affection. It is a day when people express their feelings to their loved ones through gifts, flowers, and heartfelt messages.

But what if you want to give something unique and meaningful on Valentine's Day? A trophy may be the perfect solution.

A trophy is a symbol of appreciation and accomplishment. It is a physical reminder that someone is valued, celebrated, and recognized.

When personalized with a name, date, message, or inside joke, a trophy can become a fun and memorable keepsake for a spouse, partner, friend, coworker, or anyone you want to celebrate.

Custom trophies and engraved gifts are not just for sports or corporate events. They can also be used to recognize relationships, friendships, milestones, and special moments.

Personalized holiday gifts are often more memorable than standard big-box store gifts because they show extra thought and care.

At All Star Awards we can engrave on almost any items, including ones you already own. If you have a special piece that you need engraved on, just give us a call and we can work with you to get the perfect setup.

Adding a name, date, message, logo, or custom artwork can turn a simple item into something personal and lasting.

Personalized gifts are a great fit for holidays, employee appreciation, customer thank-yous, weddings, anniversaries, retirements, and special celebrations.

Acrylic awards are a popular choice for recognizing and honoring employees, students, teams, volunteers, and organizations for their achievements and contributions.

They offer a polished and professional look while remaining versatile, durable, and affordable.

Acrylic can be shaped, engraved, printed, or customized in many ways, making it useful for corporate awards, sports recognition, academic achievements, sales awards, milestone awards, and appreciation gifts.

With their versatility, durability, and affordability, acrylic awards are a great way to show appreciation and recognize hard work.

The award industry is constantly evolving, with new trends emerging all the time.

One notable trend is personalization. Rather than giving out generic trophies or plaques, companies are choosing more unique awards customized with names, logos, messages, dates, and artwork.

Another trend is creating recognition programs that feel more personal and connected to company culture. Employees and recipients often value awards more when the recognition feels specific to their contribution.

Let our team at All Star Awards & Ad Specialties help curate a plan to reward your employees in the best and most meaningful way possible.

Is giving a trophy or award for employee of the month a good idea? For many organizations, the answer is yes because recognition helps employees feel seen and valued.

A recent survey showed that HR leaders see employee retention, employee turnover, and culture management as top workforce management challenges.

Staff morale is a crucial component of any operation. Praising and rewarding employees can lead to higher morale and inspire greater creativity, productivity, and overall satisfaction.

Trophies, plaques, acrylic awards, certificates, desk awards, and personalized gifts can all be used to recognize employees in a meaningful way.

Whether you are recognizing employee of the month, years of service, sales performance, leadership, safety, retirement, or a major milestone, All Star Awards can help you choose an award that fits the moment.

Employee appreciation can take many forms, from simple verbal praise to formal awards and recognition programs.

Trophies and awards are common for recognizing an employee's contribution and support to an organization over time. These are often given at milestones such as 5, 10, 15, or 20 years of service.

Employee Appreciation Day is another way organizations can recognize teams and individuals. Awards, small gifts, plaques, desk items, and branded items can make the recognition feel more permanent.

Gold stars, verbal praise, peer-to-peer recognition, personalized gifts, certificates, and custom plaques can all help reinforce a culture of appreciation.

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones from all of us at All Star Awards!

As we look back, we are grateful for the customers, organizations, schools, teams, businesses, and friends who continue to trust us with their awards, engraving, apparel, promotional products, and recognition needs.

Small businesses succeed because of relationships. We appreciate the opportunity to serve Kansas City and customers nationwide.

Thank you for your support, patience, loyalty, and partnership. We look forward to helping you celebrate more milestones, achievements, and special moments.

Illustrator gives you the opportunity to change text into outlines or artwork. Basically, you change the text into an object, so you can no longer edit that text by typing.

The plus side is that it saves you the trouble of sending fonts to everyone who wants to use the file.

Turning text into outlines makes it appear as though your text was created with the Pen tool. You want to use this tool when creating logos that will be used frequently by other people or artwork that you may not have control over.

This makes sending artwork to us or a vendor easy and painless as the files will be able to be opened on any software.

Please refer to Adobe help resources for step-by-step instructions on how to convert text to outlines.

Fantasy Football Trophies are a Great Way to Celebrate Your Team Win!

Fantasy football trophies are a fun and unique way to add excitement to your fantasy football league. These trophies are typically awarded to the league champion at the end of the season and can range from simple plaques to elaborate, customized trophies.

One popular type of fantasy football trophy is the trophy league style, which features a large statue mounted on a base with the league name and champion’s name engraved on it.

Another popular option is the traveling trophy style, which is passed from the reigning champion to the new champion each season. This can add history and tradition to your league.

Customized trophies are also available for those looking for a unique and personalized touch, including league logos, team names, engraved plates, and custom designs.

Fantasy football trophies are a great way to celebrate the champion and recognize their achievement at the end of the season.

Screen printing is a printing technique that involves pressing ink through a fine mesh screen onto a substrate, such as fabric, paper, or plastic.

The process typically involves preparation, washing, printing, and drying.

During preparation, the screen is coated with a light-sensitive emulsion and exposed to a positive image of the design to be printed.

The screen is then washed with water, which removes the soft, unexposed emulsion and leaves the design on the screen.

Ink is placed on top of the screen, and a scraper is used to press the ink through the screen and onto the substrate.

Screen printing is commonly used for clothing, signage, promotional products, and other printed materials. Contact us for your next printing job and let us guide you to the right process for your material.