GEON goes for gold at Tasmania PICAs

Private equity-backed, GEON, takes the lion’s share at this year’s PICAs in Tasmania.

The Moonah-based division of GEON proved itself a force to be reckoned with, taking out eight golds at last week’s awards in Hobart. Gary Nilsson, general manager of GEON Tasmania told Print21 that all 65 of the employees were thrilled by the result.

“We take great pride in the work that we do,” he said. “We don’t print to win the jobs but it’s great to win across a wide range of products.”

The awards also proved that there is plenty of room for the smaller players to triumph, too. Flying Colours won six golds, while Focal Printing, which has a team of only six staff, scored four golds plus the prestigious Heidelberg Platinum PICA for outstanding overall entry in print for its catalogue, Time Machines.

Owner, Geoff White, learnt of the victory via an SMS from his son. While he missed the chance to take centre stage, he was still excited at the news. “We were all thrilled,” he said.

According to White, the Time Machines catalogue was “one of those jobs that had been designed by a designer to test the capabilities of a printer.”

“It was a challenging job; on a scale of 1 to 10 this one was on the top end,” White said. “The degree of difficulty in this job was very high, we fortunately executed the it in a very god manner and achieved what the designer [Lynda Warner] was after.”

Tasmanian PICA president, Danny Roach, believes that Australia’s smallest state is still continuing to hold its own. “The quality of printing in Tasmania is improving all the time,” he said. “Even in the National Print Awards our state ended up with a gold.”