2016 My First 5K Medal Design

It’s time to finalize the design for the 2016 My First 5K Medal, and I need your help. For the past two years I have put the race year on the bottom of the medal. This has worked well, but it’s time to update the medal.

The idea behind the My First 5K medal is to provide a medal for runners to celebrate their accomplishment, and help races with fund raising. I want to provide a quality medal that is not prohibitively expensive. Getting the balance between quality and price is a challenge.

Catalog medals do not have dates because they are mass-produced. A race like The Boston Marathon has the full race date, but they hand out 40,000 medals and runners pay a lot of money to run that race.

What do runners want?

I’ve received plenty of catalog medals and I’ve run plenty of races without a medal. This year I ran The Great Bay Half Marathon and received the medal on the left of the photo below. The ribbon held a quality medal and the year was on the ribbon.

I thought this was a great idea. It’s much easier to see the year on the ribbon and knowing which year the medal is from is all I need to know. Then I ran the Hallmark Health Healthy Strides 5K and received the medal in the middle for being first in my age group. Only winners received medals, none of the kids or other runners who ran their first 5K that day received a medal.

I like the gold print on the blue ribbon. The ribbon only says Hallmark Health and does not name the race, year or say 1st place or anything. Hopefully twenty years from now I will remember when I ran this race. The medal is a catalog medal which is mass produced.

My First 5K Medal is on the right of the photo below. You can see the year on the bottom of this medal. To keep the medal price reasonable, the year is as specific as I can get.

The problem with this design is that any left over medals at the end of the year are scrap. Who wants a medal with the wrong date on it? This is to celebrate an accomplishment, it’s not just a trinket.

My plan is to use a ribbon like Great Bay and remove the year from the medal. In its place I will put the celebratory laurel leaves. The overall look of the My First 5K Medal will remain the same including the same finish.

The ribbon will be wider, use a similar white font and the ribbon hanger will be a bit more substantial. Anyone who has seen the My First 5K Medal knows how it feels in your hand and the weight: it’s a real medal.

My goal is to eliminate scrap medals, reduce costs and increase fund raising for races and the charities that they support.

I’m asking for your opinion and advice. Will you take my survey and let me know how you feel about my new design?

SURVEY LINK