The project
TechBBQ is an annual technology festival running pitch competitions across different sectors, and this award series is produced for it each year, two to three pieces per edition. The designs cover separate competition categories: a North Star for general tech innovation, a Life Science award built as a circular DNA double helix, and a letter P for the pitch competition.
The approach
An award for a pitch competition has to read from the back of a room and still hold up in a photograph taken from a metre away. That pushes the design toward bold, graphic forms, each tied clearly to its category so it is legible without anyone reading the base. The star communicates direction and ambition. The DNA ring speaks directly to life sciences. Because the series repeats every year, the designs also have to be worth remaking.
How it was made
The awards are 3D printed, mostly in PETG with some PLA, standing around 20 cm tall. Each one is printed in white in separate pieces, and those pieces are painted before the award is assembled, which gives cleaner colour separation than printing in colour would. Because the forms are complex and multi-part, the connections between components are designed into the parts themselves and hidden inside, so everything locks together with no visible screws, fixings or glue lines. The finished award reads as a single object despite being assembled from several printed components.
Where the same approach works
A recurring award has to survive being made again every year without the quality drifting. Designing hidden interlocking joints into the parts is what makes that repeatable, because assembly stops depending on how carefully someone handles glue on the day. The same approach suits annual award programmes, competition trophies, recognition pieces, and any object that has to look like one solid form but is too complex to make that way.
