When we started thinking about launching Printables, we had a ton of ideas about what our dream site for the 3D printing community would look like. We’ve built it step by step, listening to your feedback and making adjustments along the way. Now, we’re excited to tick off another big item from our bucket list – starting the annual awards that celebrate the best creators and their work in the 3D printing community!
Quick summary – How it works, categories and timeline
The awards feature 3 main categories including Designer of the Year, 3D Model of the Year (Community Choice) and 3D Model of the Year (Judges’ Choice).
In addition, the Category-Specific Awards recognize outstanding design across various fields, from functional and practical models to art or miniatures.
- Nominations: You can nominate your favorite models and designers directly on Printables. Open from September 23 to October 7, 2024.
- Voting: You can cast your vote for the nominees in each category. Simultaneously, our panel of judges will review and cast their votes for the 3D Model of the Year (Judges’ Choice). Runs from October 13 to October 23, 2024
- Winners Announcement: The winners will be revealed in a live stream on October 30, 2024.
Prize pool
Winners of the main categories, including Designer of the Year, 3D Model of the Year (Community Choice) and 3D Model of the Year (Judges’ Choice), will each receive the grand prize of $10,000. In addition, each will receive our custom-designed trophy and a special award badge for their Printables profile.
Category-specific winners will each take home a 5-Tool Original Prusa XL, the most advanced consumer 3D printer on the market. The idea is to open up new possibilities for the creators to work on even more ambitious projects. With bigger, tougher, cleaner prints, consisting of several materials in one print.
What we think matters more though, is the recognition from the community. With millions of people sharing their work on Printables every month, even landing a nomination is an incredible achievement. The Printables Awards are about shining a light on all the amazing work happening here every day – a thank you to everyone who pours their time, creativity, and passion into their designs and helps to make this community what it is.
Detailed list of categories
Designer of the Year
This prestigious award recognizes the standout designer who has made the biggest impact on 3D printing in 2024. It’s a cumulative achievement that celebrates their overall contribution, creativity, and consistent quality across all their designs — not just a single popular model. The winner will receive a grand prize of $10,000, a custom-designed trophy, a special award badge on their Printables profile, and the unique opportunity to design the trophy for next year’s awards!
3D Model of the Year (Community Choice)
Whether it’s incredibly useful, beautifully designed, or just plain awesome, you get to decide who takes home the grand prize of $10,000, a special award badge on their Printables profile, and the unique 3D printed trophy.
3D Model of the Year (Judges’ Choice)
Selected by a panel of expert judges from the 3D printing community, it’s entirely up to them to decide which model deserves the spotlight. The winner will take home the grand prize of $10,000, a special award badge on their Printables profile, and the unique 3D printed trophy.
Judges
 Josef Prusa |
 Proper Printing |
 Tom Stanton |
 CNC Kitchen |
 |
 Joel Telling |
 Ivan Miranda |
 Engineezy |
 Nerdforge |
Category-Specific Awards
Each winner in these categories will receive the 5-Tool Original Prusa XL, a special award badge on their Printables profile, and a custom-designed trophy.
Best 3D Model in Functional Design
This category honors the MacGyvers of 3D printing, models that are practical, solving everyday problems with smart, functional designs.
Best 3D Model in Art
Focusing purely on aesthetics, creativity, and leveraging 3D printing as an art form.
Best 3D Model in Miniature Design
This category recognizes the best small-scale designs, from mini dragons to goose hydras, whether they are printable just on SLA or FDM printers, if it’s tiny, detailed, and packed with character, it’s got a place here.
Best 3D Model in Multi-Material Design
Combining multiple materials in a single print opens up a whole new world of use-cases for 3D printable designs. This award goes to the most ingenious application of multi-material printing.
Best 3D Model in Print-in-Place Design
Print-in-place designs are magic – models that come straight off the print bed fully assembled and ready to go. If you’ve ever thought, “How did they do that?” then the model falls into this category.
Each Vote = a Chance To Win a 3D Printer!
Vote now for a chance to win a 5-Tool Original Prusa XL or one of the Original Prusa MK4S printers! Every designer/3D model nomination or vote you cast counts. Here’s how it works:
- The voter who casts the middle vote (for example, the 100,000th vote out of 200,000) will win the Original Prusa XL.
- The voter who casts the vote closest to 25% of the total and the one closest to 75% will each win an Original Prusa MK4S.
Additional information in detail
Nominations
Nominations are open starting with September 23rd and run for two weeks. During this time, all Printables users can nominate up to five models and three designers. You can submit your nominations directly from designer profile pages, 3D model detail pages, or through the dedicated Printables Awards page. You can update and edit your nominations as you browse Printables during the entire nomination period.
Since this is our inaugural year, we are extending the pool of eligible models to include designs published since January 1st, 2023 (including January 1st).
Please note that only free, publicly available models are eligible—reuploads, NSFW models, and exclusive Store or Club items are not allowed. We are also reserving the right to exclude models violating our T&S or the rights of 3rd parties.
Voting
After the nomination period closes, models will be sorted into their respective categories. Voting will then open on October 13th, allowing the community to choose their favorites among the nominees in each category. The 3D Model of the Year (Judges’ Choice) will be selected by a panel of judges, made up of some of the most respected figures in the 3D printing community. We’ll combine all their votes to discover which model stands out as the most popular among the experts.
Announcement Stream
The winners will be revealed in an announcement stream on October 30th. Join us for this exciting event as we unveil the winners of each category.
Happy printing!
May the best designer win!!
Soozafone has this in the bag!
Totally.
Great idea, can’t wait to see the live stream announcing all the winners!
Awesome !
And nice choice of judges! 🙂
The who is who of 3D Printing YTers
Club models are not eligible?
Since this is our inaugural year, we are extending the pool of eligible models to include designs published since January 1st, 2023 (including January 1st).
Please note that only free, publicly available models are eligible—reuploads, NSFW models, and exclusive Store or Club items are not allowed.
I’ve been trying to nominate some models that @fulv has designed but it won’t let me. I was able to nominate him as a designer, but not his models. What am I doing wrong?
Since this is our inaugural year, we are extending the pool of eligible models to include designs published since January 1st, 2023 (including January 1st).
Great initiative! Recognizing the work in the platform is strong encouragement and motivation! I hope you all include MiniWorld3D within your nominations!
The judging teams looks like a powerhouse! Please let me request you also invite Michael from Teaching Tech, his contributions to the community and designs are worth every bit of recognition and his technical background would be an excellent addition to the judge team!