This article was updated after the official winners announcemenet stream.

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!

Results

The Official Winners Announcement Stream for Printables Awards 2024 aired on 30th October. Congratulations to the winners! You’ll find the breakdown of individual categories below.

Designer of the Year

Martin

3D Model of the Year

Dummy 13 by soozafone

3D Model of the Year – Judges Choice

Dummy 13 by soozafone

Category Winners

The Best 3D Model in Functional Design

The Open Ball V1 (Ball vise system) by Chris Borge

The Best 3D Model in Art

The Low Poly World Map by Johannes

The Best 3D Model in Miniature Design

Monsters of the Multiverse Collection by MZ4250

The Best 3D Model in Multi-Material Design

The Jeep Kit Card by agepbiz

The Best 3D Model in Print-in-Place Design

is the Collapsing Katana V2 (Print-in-Place) by 3D Printing World

Original article from the nomination phase below.

Quick summary – How it works, categories and timeline

VOTE NOW

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.

  1. Nominations: You can nominate your favorite models and designers directly on Printables. Open from September 23 to October 7, 2024.
  2. 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
  3. 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
Wren

Joel Telling
Nerdforge
Ivan Miranda
Engineezy
Ali Spagnola

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!