Plenty of room for printovation: Theo Pettaras

With the Printovation Awards about to make their debut, chairman and all-round ideas man, Theo Pettaras, shares his thoughts on why these are awards the industry has to have.

To me, innovation is the marriage of creative thought and a new approach to production. It encompasses a myriad of ideas and trials to come up with something that is both inspirational and saleable.

The Printovation Awards are not just limited and restricted to the digital print market. Categories include wide format (SRA3 and over), offset/web, digital (non-variable data), digital (variable/ direct marketing/ cross-media), packaging and label printing. 

I appreciate John Wanless’ comments “for everyone's sake that having another industry award event doesn't clog up the year with too many similar events,” and “does not see that the NPA's position as being challenged by the Printovation awards”. However, GASAA see this as an opportunity to showcase the best our industry has to offer with print innovation. I find his remarks “not too much produced these days is innovative” and “most disciplines have been done before” quite surprising and unwarranted.

 I know for a fact that some entries submitted in last year’s NSW PICAs print excellence innovation category, demonstrated extremely difficult and unique techniques, (some never been produced before and deemed a world first), were completely disregarded and overlooked. There are plenty of print innovators out there, they just need to be encouraged and motivated to showcase their work without having to worry about being bulldozed by an impeccably printed product.

I agree with Mr Wanless that equipment manufacturers are coming up with the tools that allow creative users to be innovative, but if it were not for printers utilising these and experimenting with them we would have very little progress with innovation. Print innovation helps our industry; it is a fundamental part of what we do and essential for our industry to remain viable.

At a recent industry night I heard a presenter quote the iPad as the enemy and he needed to get to know it. I see the iPad as a friend and a way to embrace the technology and work along side it as a complementary and perhaps essential partner in the printing industry. This is a matter of perspective and clearly illustrates the need to appreciate different viewpoints.

The Printovation Awards committee has carefully selected qualified and respected industry people who believe that previously, “Innovation Award” categories have been a source of frustration as the judges' decisions or selection process is left unexplained. In many instances, companies have submitted very "innovative" entries that may or may not have won, but they are none the wiser as to the criteria used in the judges' decision process. Print quality on the other hand, is a different issue – it's either good or bad, but "innovation" is a far more ambiguous concept. It has, therefore, been suggested that the Printovation Awards program adopt a more transparent approach and differentiate itself by having judges write a brief outline/explanation on their reasoning, so everyone can understand the thought processes involved in deciding a winner. These can then be posted on a website giving more informed feedback.

At the end of the day, the Printovation Awards program is not about back-slapping, nor will it have the razzle-dazzle that goes with the well-organised annual NPA’s nights. It’s about taking a serious look at how we can be better at what we do, help our industry work along side other advertising mediums, and offer recognition to those wanting to make a significant contribution to print innovation.

I am sure my fellow committee members will agree that we would welcome some open dialogue with the NPA on how we can work together and be united in trying to do whatever we can to help our industry. If Mr Wanless is correct in informing us all that “not much produced these days is innovative” and we get a lack of award submissions and support form the industry vendors, then I am concerned for the long-term viability of our beloved industry.

As a result of innovative concepts swirling around in my head and many experimental sessions, I have, over the past couple of years given our clients more commercially viable and unique product offerings. It’s not unusual to have several of “Theo’s experiments” sprawled over our production area concurrently, as I believe in being proactive when an idea embeds itself in ones thoughts, much to the chagrin of the production team who like to run a tight ship! I personally figure that if I left all my ideas as just that, how could we develop groundbreaking innovations?

I’m glad you agree.

Theo Pettaras

Digitalpress, Surry Hills