Long Service and Retirement Awards in Dubai: Wording, Names and Photos

A long service or retirement award carries five things: the person's name as they write it, the years or the dates, the organisation's logo in its own colours, one line of thanks, and often a photograph. In the UAE it is usually bilingual. All five print in colour on the same piece, and every piece in a programme can carry a different name.

Sun Studio is a direct UV printing studio in Al Quoz, Dubai. We print names, photographs, logos and Arabic onto crystal, glass and acrylic awards, from a single retirement piece to a whole year's programme. To order, see printing crystal, glass and acrylic awards.

What a long service or retirement award says

Whatever the material, the same parts come up on almost every award or plaque:

• The name, exactly as the person writes it, with the title they use (Dr, Eng., Mr; الدكتور، المهندس، الأستاذ). A printed name cannot be corrected afterwards, so it comes from a checked list.
• The service: the number of years (25 years) or the dates (2001–2026); for a retirement, the final year.
• The organisation: the logo as artwork in its brand colour values, not a screenshot.
• One line of thanks, such as the examples below.
• Optional: the occasion and the date, a photograph, and a signature supplied as artwork.

Give the name the most space. Keep the line of thanks to one short sentence, so it prints at a size that can be read at arm's length instead of shrinking to fit, and put the logo at the top or the bottom of the piece. On a bilingual award, give the English and the Arabic of each line a similar size, side by side or one above the other in the order your brand guideline sets, so neither language reads as an afterthought.

Check every name in both scripts before the artwork is built. A name written in Arabic can be spelled several ways in English (Mohammed, Mohamed, Muhammad), and only the person, or the HR record they approved, knows which one is theirs. The same goes for titles: Dr on one piece and Doctor on the next looks like a mistake when the awards stand side by side.

Wording examples in English and Arabic

Replace the brackets. The Arabic lines are written to be printed as they are.

In Arabic, 3 to 10 years take the plural (10 سنوات) and 11 to 99 take the singular (25 عاماً). Send the Arabic as outlined vector artwork so the letterforms are not changed by a font substitution.

Printing the name, the years and a photograph

Names and years come from one names list: a spreadsheet with every name spelled exactly as it should appear, the Arabic beside it where the award is bilingual, and the years for each person. Every piece in the run can carry a different name and number, because there is no screen or plate to change between pieces: each one is printed from the file. One sample is printed and approved before the run.

A photograph is printed in full colour on a flat face of the award or plaque. On clear crystal or acrylic, a white layer goes down behind it so the image stays solid instead of see-through; our trophies guide explains why colour on clear crystal needs a white layer. Send the original photo file, not a copy saved from social media or a chat app. An award is looked at from close up, and a compressed copy shows.

The logo works the same way. Send it as vector artwork (an AI, EPS, SVG or PDF file) with its brand colour values, and say whether it should print in full colour or in white on a coloured area. A logo copied from a website or an email signature is usually too small to print cleanly. Our guide to preparing artwork for UV printing covers which file to send.

On clear pieces, the artwork can also go on the back face and be read through the front. How that works is covered under reverse printed awards.

Crystal or acrylic for a service programme

For a programme that comes round every year, the choice is mostly about how the pieces are handed over and moved:

• Crystal for single formal pieces where the weight in the hand is part of the gift, such as a retirement award presented at a dinner.
• Acrylic for large programmes and for pieces that are shipped to other sites, carried home or handed out in numbers: it is much lighter and takes a knock better.
• Both take full colour, white and Arabic lettering, so the wording and the layout do not change with the material.

Our trophies guide has a table showing how crystal, glass and acrylic compare when printed, from the white layer to the back face.

Planning a yearly programme

Most employee long service programmes mark 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years. Design one award for all of them and change only the name and the number, so a five-year piece and a 25-year piece are plainly part of the same programme. If the milestones should look different, change one element, such as the flood colour, and keep the layout.

Next year's pieces should match this year's, so keep the approved file and the colour profile it was printed with: the next ceremony then starts from the same artwork and the same colour. Getting a run of awards to match covers the rest of that discipline.

A names list can still change after it is sent: a late joiner to a milestone year, a corrected title, a retirement announced in the final week. Keep one person responsible for the list, and send each change as a revised spreadsheet rather than a message, so every printed piece matches the approved version.

There is no minimum order for UV printing done in our studio, so one retirement award is a normal job; the price per piece falls as the quantity rises.

Send the ceremony date first, even before the names list is final: the sample, its approval and the run are planned back from that date.

Common questions

Send the names list, the years, the logo and the ceremony date through crystal and awards printing.

Sun Studio LLC
Warehouse #7, Al Quoz 1, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
Call: +971 4 346 7422
Email: info@sunstudio.ae