A crowd of 900 at the Sky City Convention Centre on Friday night saw an Auckland screen printer take out the 2008 New Zealand Pride In Print Supreme Award with a poster that judges hailed as being of "amazing" quality.
The "Hair Comes Alive In Our Hands" poster was produced by Penrose company, Original Screen for Wella Koleston and was the highpoint of a successful night for Auckland at New Zealand's premier print awards, with two other Auckland companies heading their respective print categories.
Logick Print and Graphics of Penrose topped the packaging category and Carter Holt Harvey Paper Bag, also of Penrose, won the flexography category.
The other major regional winner was Christchurch, which had three Supreme Finalists – GEON Kiwi Labels who won the labels category, Security Plastics who won the security category and Verve Digital who won the binding and finishing top prize.
Waikato also had a good night, with Hamilton companies Admark Visual Imaging and Fonterra Canpac winning the digital and special processes/metal printing categories respectively.
Wellington and the Hutt Valley combined took out the other two categories, with Wellington's Printlink winning sheetfed and Petone’s Gravure Packaging successful in gravure.
Attendance was hit by dense fog at Auckland airport, stranding many out-of-town visitors (including some award winners) who found their flights into the Queen City cancelled.
With a theme of "deadly sins" introduced by the booming Queen song "I Want it All", Pride In Print chairman John North hailed the awards as having brought 15 years of celebration to the industry.
Summarising what the awards mean to print, North says that each year somewhere between 140 to 180 different print companies place between 750 and 1050 individual entries.
"On this occasion every year between 700 and 1000 print industry participants attend this glittering event and celebrate excellence in print," says North.
"To put this in context, these awards nights attract more attendees than high-profile sports awards programmes. Well done the print industry!"
North says gold medals are won by small and big companies alike – "on old machines and the latest technologies, for all sorts of work. There is much anecdotal evidence that major customers are now using Pride In Print participation and success as a selection criterion when choosing a printer.
"I am very proud that this very diverse industry has co-operated and participated in such an inclusive manner that today we have this showcase that is the envy of other industries," North concludes.
