Pride and glory for New Zealand’s best printers

Printers throughout New Zealand have a lot to be proud of after the dazzling display of work on show at last week’s Pride In Print Awards. Print 21 spoke to the printers, judges and winners about the 2009 awards.

The New Zealand printing industry’s night-of-nights drew a crowd of over 600 guests at the Wellington Convention Centre on 8 May. Awards manager, Sue Archibald, said that the event was a success.

“We were all really pleased with how the awards went,” she said. “It was a very long night, but we had 114 awards, which is a lot of calling.”

A list of all award winners for Pride In Print 2009 can be found here.

According to Archibald, judging only gets tougher and tougher each year due to advanced technology and the competitive spirit around the country. “At the end of the day you’re trying to find faults in consistently high quality work,” she said. “It’s supreme work – the industry’s best – the judges don’t have an easy task.”

Sweet like chocolate
Revenge may be sweet, but Christchurch printing and packaging company, Amcor Cartons, would agree that winning is even sweeter.

The company bagged this year’s Supreme Award (known in print circles as the ‘Oscar’ of the industry) for a 250g Cadbury’s Old Gold Carton, (pictured above) which also won the Packaging Category of the awards.

“This is an exceptional piece of print,” said Archibald.

Nigel Harrison, manager of Amcor Cartons South Island branch agrees, though he also admits that in his lifetime of involvement in printing it has also been the most trying job he’s tackled.

“It was so difficult to achieve with the colours and the embossing, but we promised to Cadbury’s we could do it. The printers who first handled it, hated it,” Harrison said. “But they were determined to make it happen and now Cadbury’s have seen the finished effect they want to replicate it in other packaging lines.”

Senior packaging judge Laurie Lark said the box deserved to win the country’s most prestigious print and packaging award. “I would give it 10 out of 10 for difficulty but they have done very, very well and I am most impressed with its quality,” he said.

Cold comfort for Horton Media
Manukau-based Horton Media spent more time on stage than in sitting down, winning eight of the eleven gold medals for coldset printing.

The company won three golds for its daily and weekly customers and took all of the gold medals for the cold-set commercial category.

It was the first year the company won gold in the daily and weekly newspaper category usually dominated by publishers of the large English-language titles. Horton Media picked up firsts for Chinese weekly Property Overview, Korean title Property Journal and improved upon its Highly Commended in 2007 for English newspaper, The Weekly Telegraph.
Chief executive, Matthew Horton, (pictured) said the medals were a fair reward for the efforts of the company’s staff.

“We are thrilled for the staff who have shown they can consistently sustain printing of the highest quality from week-to-week and year-to-year,” he said.
“These awards prove our clients are receiving the best cold-set printing in New Zealand. We think that’s particularly important when advertising has never been harder to sell.”

Honourable mentions
Three of Pride In Print’s biggest supporters were recognised at this year’s Awards by becoming the first inductees into a Roll of Honour.

Pictured: (L-R) Grant Leftus, Leo Caunter and Warren Johnson.

Former judging convenors Warren Johnson and Grant Letfus, and long-serving judge in the flexographic and gravure categories Leo Caunter, were brought to the stage to receive the applause of the crowd.

The trio received special medals and certificates to honour their contribution to the Pride In Print movement.