FESPA Awards 2019 announced

Celebrating excellence in print

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FESPA Awards 2019 announced

The winners of FESPA 2019 Awards were announced at FESPA’s annual Gala dinner, which took place on 15 May 2019 at Löwenbräukeller in Munich, Germany, during FESPA Global Print Expo 2019.

Perfect Packaging from Pune won gold in the Display and Packaging on Paper & Board category for a perfume box for Lory, printed in offset litho on high quality folding box board, soft-touch laminated, and enhanced with gold, blue and silver foil. To add an extra dimension of textured finishes, screen-printed UV varnish was added to produce four different texture effects.

Spectrum Scan from Mumbai won gold in the Display & Packaging on Plastic category for a backlit flange produced for Elephant House ice cream, a multicolour exterior projection sign for attracting attention during day and night. The artwork was predistorted to compensate for the thermoforming process and screen-subsurface printed with spot colours. After thermoforming the signs were assembled with LED lighting and brackets for wall mounting.

Classic Stripes from Mumbai received three awards. The company won gold in the Decals and Printed Labels category for a HiLux-commissioned decal set, screen printed in three colours over white, including metallic gold using extended light-fast solvent-based inks on automotive-grade transparent vinyl. Classic also won gold for an Elephant House badge that was screen printed on a semi-automatic flatbed printer in nine colours using solvent based inks on chrome ABS, before being vacuum-formed to its final shape. In the category Functional Printing, the company won bronze for an Ashok Leyland dial that was screen printed on the top face with nine special colours and then sub surfaced on the reverse with a further ten colours on polycarbonate, including fluorescent inks to ensure 24-hour illumination.

Dhanvi Rasiklal Shah Arts Company from Ahmedabad received the Distinction in the Serigraphy and Fine Arts category for artwork commissioned by Yogini. The Young Star Award was presented to design student, Antonio Tsigonias, of T.E.I. Athens, Department of Graphic Arts Technology in Greece for his entry titled ‘Garden Team’.

This year’s People’s Choice Award winner, which is voted for online by FESPA global speciality print community, was presented to PVG’s Maharashtra Institute of Printing Technology in India for their entry titled ‘Screen Printing Graphics’ submitted in the Young Star category.

The Best in Show Award is judged across all categories on the work that the judges felt represented the most outstanding example of print. This year the award was presented to two companies, Atelier fuer Siebdruck from Switzerland, for its screen printed entry ‘Creativ Verpacke’” in the Serigraphies and Fine Art category and VGL from the UK for its digitally printed entry ‘Beefeater Gin Underground Poster Campaign’ in the Posters category.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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