Camden Business Awards Plaques 2013 - From Conception to completion and all the bits inbetween!

Camden Council approached Cockpit Arts with a request for a designer maker to design and make trophies for the Camden business awards inaugural event  in 2013. Vanessa Swan, Director of Cockpit Arts, passed their details onto me as a maker who could offer them something a bit different.

I worked with Camden Council to create very modern plaques constructed using polished aluminium moving slightly away from the concept of a traditional trophy but to make a freestanding plaque made entirely from one material - aluminium, which is durable and light and incredibly smooth and tactile and eye catchingly shiny!

I suggested using my drawing of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, where incidentally the awards ceremony was going to be held, as it is an iconic Camden building with a rich history and has recently been restored to it's former beauty.

Photograph of some of the stamps used to print aluminium

Printing is a manual process and the front of each plaque was printed using three stamps. One for the illustration, one for the Camden Council logo and one for the award category. Lining up the prints was done by eye which was problematic at times! A stamp with 'Made in London' was printed onto the back of the plaques.

Dye baths for aluminium

 After each plaque was printed it was submerged in a dye bath containing industrial aluminium dyes. The dye is kept at a constant temperature and is then boiled in water to fix the dye. When the dye is fixed I removed the printing ink with a solution and then each one one was filed, sanded and hammered into a curved shape.

The winners and Sky Business Correspondent Joel Hills who compared the awards ceremony loved them!

Excellency in Energy Efficiency was won by The Dominion Theatre

Small Business of the Year was won by JFH Law

High Growth Business of the Year & Employer of the Year was won by Illustrious Homes

Text and Images Copyright Sally Lees 2015