President’s Club FY25: Corporate Recognition Awards

260 awards had to be produced, each individually personalised with the recipient’s name and packaged in its own custom box. Every single step of the process (lacquering, engraving, assembling, packaging, …) had to be executed 260 times, by hand, to the same level of quality.

At the same time, the award had to feel premium and personal. This was not a bulk order for a shelf. It was a piece that would be handed to someone in recognition of an exceptional year, delivered to their room at a five-star hotel in Portugal.

The design process

The brief asked for an award that felt genuinely rooted in that heritage. Early directions explored ceramic surfaces, terrazzo and cork, but fragility and production complexity at scale ruled them out one by one.

Two original concepts were developed in parallel. The first was a vertical wooden totem: architectural, upright, with brass detailing and an engraved azulejo tile motif on the surface. The second reinterpreted the tile itself as a sculptural object: a thick CNC-carved wooden panel with a deep floral relief, mounted on a solid base.

Both concepts went through multiple rounds of prototyping across different wood species, stain tones and finishing techniques. The Fabit team tested everything from natural and warm-toned beech to dark-stained oak, from laser-engraved surfaces to UV-printed details, from solid carved fronts to cut-through layers revealing the brass beneath.