How to Create Awards Certificates

You can create a design for awards certificates and order prints based on ready-made awards certificates templates in five minutes if you choose a professional awards certificate management platform.

What is an award certificate?

An award certificate for recognising achievements is a simple piece of paper with an awards inscription. These are primarily certificates of achievement; employee, student, or teacher recognition awards; certificates of participation; etc.

Awards problems and pitfalls

The problem may be that printable awards certificates cannot provide or guarantee security to websites by encrypting sensitive data and verifying them in the way digital certificates do. Certificates are printed and usually delivered in one of two ways: formal presentations and presentation to dozens of people at once, which may cause some organisational problems while attempting to distribute them in a timely manner, or in envelopes exchanged with a nod and an awkward whisper of congratulations, etc.

Award certificates requirements

What information should such a certificate actually contain? The awards certificate design is pretty simple in structure. There are seven common wording sections:

• Title (Certificate of Achievement)
• Presentation line (This is awarded to…)
• Recipient (Name)
• From whom
• Description (Reason for award)
• Date
• Signature

There are no hard and fast rules for how to word or format an award certificate, but these components are a basic outline.

How to create awards certificates step by step

Want to know how to make an awards certificate really astounding? Here are the actions you can take step-by-step.

Choose a platform to create certificates

Create certificates for every award under the sun with free drag-and-drop software or paid awards management solutions. 

Pick the size

Choose the size of a document as well as its orientation, paper quality, background of your award certificate, etc.

Choose a theme

Whether online or printed, pick a great theme.  Do consider buying a premium theme or design template to make a truly exceptional awards certificate.

Add an image

Add high-quality images and illustrations, and choose from over a hundred fonts with your chosen design software.

Write text

This will insert a text field where you may write text. The text you write will be matched literally (i. e. you do not need to avoid any characters).

Download or print

When your awards certificate is ready, you should download or print the certificates to hand out. 

Digital version

Make the certification be used by participants on social media and websites, come up with the digital badges for winners.

How to сreate a сertificate in MS Word

• Open Microsoft Word. Its app icon resembles a dark blue box with a white “W” on it.
• Click the search bar at the top of the Word window. 
• Search for gift certificate templates.
• Select a template.
• Click Create.
• Create an awards certificate.
• Fill out your gift certificate.
• Print your document. 
• Decorate your gift certificate.

How to design your certificates

You may create awards certificates with a number of different designs. You can design your own certificate in five steps:

• Pick a certificate template that fits the occasion. 
• Customise the text and colours of your certificate. 
• Change the background design, add icons, and adjust the text placement as you see fit.
• Download your certificate, and give it to the deserving recipient!
• Avoid common mistakes.

Mistakes to avoid

Here are the common mistakes you should avoid when designing your online awards certificates ideas:

• Not respecting the norms
• Avoiding heavy images, graphics and multimedia
• Missing header tags
• Hiding your contact info
• Being vague, etc.

Keep in mind that mistakes either in a web document or a printed certificate may result in rejection of the documents.

Helpful service for creating certificates

You may choose to use an awards certificate maker, apart from Microsoft Word and either free or paid, to improve the quality of your awards certificate wording.

Canva

This is one of the most popular design tools on the market, giving any specialist the feeling that he or she is a really excellent designer. A free trial version is full of almost unlimited possibilities: You can make everything from business cards to brochures, not to mention high-quality pictures for social networks, posters, presentations, etc. This is a highly recommended program for an event’s creative and visualisation work.

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is an integrated set of multimedia applications for mobile devices and web applications developed by Adobe Systems that allows beautiful typography, auto-add cinematic motion, iconic imagery, and other premium design tools and effects.

Evite

If all you need is an invitation and RSVP system as well as pre-made design templates, Evite’s free version will do. The ad-supported option has a limit of 750 invitations and a large selection of designs.

Judgify Professional Services

Judgify is an online awards system designed to empower awards organisers around the world to set up awards and competitions with ease. With cloud-based and mobile-ready awards management software, Judgify seeks to transform the management of awards into simple, transparent, and credible processes, including the development of certificate ideas, tips, and design templates. Check out the full software review here. 

Award certificates ideas

Award certificates are a great way to encourage good behaviour, set industry standards, and recognise excellent work in a variety of fields. Do it with the help of top awards certificate ideas you can only find online.

Create awards worth keeping with Canva or other useful software collections of certificate templates. You can customise your certificates by adding photos, icons, and images straight from the massive design template archive.

Certificate templates

You’re welcome to consider the top-quality certificate templates you may use in your certificate printing practice.

Tips

Award certificates are a popular way to express appreciation or recognise accomplishments. Therefore, to create and present memorable award certificates, follow these five simple award certificate tips:

• Say it with style. 
• Design is everything.
• Have an authority endorse it.
• Present it properly. 
• Dignify the award occasion.

Do not forget to use professional tools to create the certificates!

Call to action

Discover more about what is an awards certificate from awards management experts at the Judgify support page.

Conclusion

A wide variety of software, features, and modules are available when making awards certificates, handling awards software management, or performing other awards work. When deciding how much to invest in a tool, the price is definitely a key factor. You can outline your list of specifications you need to print on your high-quality awards certificates and pick different solutions that fit your initial specifications in order to succeed with your choice. Contact us any time you need more specific awards management help.