FESPA Awards 2020 winners announced

Global excellence in speciality and visual communication print

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Fespa Awards 2020: This theatre staging project in Sweden required the same luxurious surface pattern to be applied at different scales to ceiling, drapes, curtains, wall covering and upholstery and has been finished with printed carpet. It has been printed using Mimaki TS34 onto paper before sublimation to the fabric using Klieverik calendar. The project involved printing onto various polyester substrates, including velvet and carpeting.
Fespa Awards 2020: This theatre staging project in Sweden required the same luxurious surface pattern to be applied at different scales to ceiling, drapes, curtains, wall covering and upholstery and has been finished with printed carpet. It has been printed using Mimaki TS34 onto paper before sublimation to the fabric using Klieverik calendar. The project involved printing onto various polyester substrates, including velvet and carpeting.

FESPA has announced the winners of this year’s FESPA Awards, its annual celebration of excellence in the global specialty print and visual communications community. The Awards are open to print service providers (PSPs) and sign-makers looking to highlight outstanding projects.

This year’s program received entries from 27 countries across the 18 categories. The winners were announced during an online ceremony hosted by FESPA’s Technical Support Manager, Graeme Richardson-Locke, in lieu of the live Gala Awards event which would have taken place during this year’s Global Print Expo in Madrid.

The categories ‘Packaging on Paper and Board’, ‘Packaging on Plastics’, ‘Wrapping’ and ‘Printeriors’ were new to this year’s Awards scheme, recognizing four important growth applications for specialty print and signage businesses.

FESPA 2020 Gold Award Winners
FESPA 2020 Gold Award Winners

Among this year’s entries, the judges selected two to receive Best in Show Awards for truly outstanding examples of print. These are Christian M. Walter – Taller de Serigrafía- Edición from Spain, for the entry “New York de Sergio García Sánchez” in the Serigraphy and Fine Art category, and The Look Company from Qatar for its Roll-to-Roll Printed Textiles entry “Anoc World Beach Games.”

Members of the FESPA community selected the People’s Choice Award from the shortlisted entries, with Sakawa Printing Company from Japan taking this honor for its Japanese Fishes Calendar in the Creative Special Effect – Paper, Board and Plastics category.

New to the 2020 Awards is the Judges’ Award for Innovation which was handed to HAAS Die Werbemanufaktur from Switzerland for its 3D Printed Beer Bottle Breaks Through Glass entry in the Direct Printing on Three-Dimensional Products category. Graeme Richardson-Locke, FESPA Awards Judge, commented, “This entry was selected as the winner of the Judges’ Award for Innovation for being a brilliantly executed and creative concept using a combination of 3D printing, vinyl wrapping and detail fabrication.”

The 2020 Young Star winner is PVG’s Maharashtra Institute of Printing Technology in India for their entry, ‘Save Tigers Before They are Silenced Forever.’
The 2020 Young Star winner is PVG’s Maharashtra Institute of Printing Technology in India for their entry, ‘Save Tigers Before They are Silenced Forever.’

Entries were also invited for the Young Star category, for junior print industry employees, trainees or students aged between 16 and 25. The 2020 Young Star winner is PVG’s Maharashtra Institute of Printing Technology in India for their entry, ‘Save Tigers Before They are Silenced Forever.’ “This student’s work shows ambition in reproduction and design, using 4-color processes and special effect varnishes,” Graeme explains why this entry was awarded Gold.

Christian Duyckaerts, Fespa president comments, “Championing print excellence and promoting the unique power of print is central to Fespa’s mission. With the Fespa Awards, we want to inspire our global community to keep developing fresh ideas and using advances in technology and materials to add new dimensions to the work they produce for customers, as a foundation for continued growth. Judging this work is a privilege because it reminds us that print – in all its many forms and applications – is creative, beautiful, and, above all, effective. We extend our congratulations to all our 2020 winners.”

For a full list of the FESPA Award winners and runners up, visit www.fespaawards.com.   

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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