An Award That Makes Care Visible

Postmen Art Director – Olena Horobets  Creative Copywriter – Daria Tarasevych  Chief Operating Officer – Hanna Savchuk  Chief Creative Officer – Olga Mykhalets  Project Manager – Anna Ivanova  Project Manager – Dariia Varenyk  How Production: Yuriy Stetsiuk, Maks Livickiy

The Brief Most awards celebrate performance. Few celebrate the people who ensure children grow up in families, not institutions. UNICEF Ukraine and the Coordination Centre for Family-Based Care needed an award that would honor this quiet, systemic work — and make its value tangible. The Idea Care is structural, but it's also human. You may not see it, but you feel it. We translated this duality into an object: a brick — the foundation of every home — coated with a surface that responds to human warmth. When a laureate holds the trophy, their hands leave visible traces. The marks appear in seconds, then slowly fade. Recognition becomes an experience. The act of holding the award mirrors the act of caring: invisible work that leaves a real, lasting mark. The Craft Engineering the surface required calibrating thermochromic pigments to react precisely to body temperature (36–37°C) — not higher heat. Through iterative testing in a craft-based studio in wartime Ukraine, we developed a custom water-based formulation applied to wood, which retains warmth and releases it gradually. The result: a controlled reveal-and-fade, activated by touch alone. All 16 trophies were made by hand — wood and solid aluminium, cut, assembled, coated, and tested individually. The Impact In 2025, 16 laureates received the award. People whose work had long gone unseen became visible — featured in national media, invited onto television and podcasts, approached by brands as ambassadors. The Better Care Awards became annual. An award that, like care itself, only reveals its meaning when held.