The biennial award was announced at the Queensland PICA awards on 19 November.

First prize winner Robert Wilson and his parents had been flown in from South Australia by employer Detmold without any prior knowledge of the outcome.

LIA federal president Bernie Hockings said Wilson’s family were elated when they heard the good news.

“His mum was in tears and his dad over the moon,” he said.

“The funniest part of the story was that apparently his dad had never been on a plane before.”

Second place was taken out by Sony DADC apprentice Scott Mohammed, who will be flown to Germany by the LIA for next year’s Drupa exhibition. 

Wilson is planning on using his $15,000 prize money to cover a trip to Detmold’s factory in China, a trip to Drupa in Germany and advancing his career in management.

The judging panel included GAMAA executive director Karen Goldsmith, Gary Bender from Intech and Donna McGuire a previous winner.

Hockings said that the quality of all eight finalists made the challenge of picking a winner very difficult for the judges.

“Realistically you could of picked any one of them because they were all of a very high calibre,” he said.

“While the number of apprentices in the printing industry is going down, the quality seems to be getting better.

Pictured: Rober Wilson celebrates with his parents.

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