The printing industry is at a crossroads as we watch and adapt to the advance of digital printing, the Internet and related technologies. However, if the 2003 Pride in Print Awards taught us anything, it was that quality is still crucial and that it doesn’t necessarily need the highest of high tech to be achieved.
Indeed, the product that won the supreme award for Webprint Colour couldn’t have been more from the old school. The NZ Woman’s Weekly 70th Anniversary issue showed that quality never goes out of fashion and that innovation goes a long way. The magazine’s continual evolution from its recipes and knitting patterns origins to the fresh and modern, award-winning magazine of today provided a useful metaphor for the printing industry as a whole.
At the other end of the scale, one of the 10 supreme award finalists was Moore Gallagher’s ’Admission to Discharge Planner’ printed for Auckland Health. A business form featuring variable bar codes and carbonless paper, it again proved that neat and simple can be every bit as good as complex and sophisticated. Judges described it as: “Well thought out design for a complex medical records’ application.”
Labels and packaging enjoyed a fruitful year, picking up a large number of golds and nominations for the supreme award. Again, in the packaging area, it was excellence in traditional areas that won the day. Panprint’s Deutz Carton entry, for example, reached the final of the supreme award with the following judge’s comment: “Outstanding print and diecut combination with excellence in embossing and foiling.” It was just one of three Panprint entries to reach the supreme award final.
At the same time as the traditional processes proved there’s still life in the old presses yet, new technologies and methods were forging their way into the awards, giving the event a fresh look. The increasingly popular composite category gained greater notice at this year’s awards than ever before.
Composite, the use of several different printing processes on the same job, has been an increasingly popular category since its introduction into the awards three years ago. This year there were 21 entries, compared to only eight last year, with gold medals going to Comprint for Autocar Magazine, Tasman Westside Printers for the Blindspot CD Pack and Wickcliffe Press for a Millbrook Resort voucher pack.
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