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Pride In Print supreme award winner, Arria Design Group, has vacuumed up two major awards in Australia its innovative tourism products.
Arria added a gold medal for its Barrier Reef postcard to its award table at the Graphic Arts Services Australia (GASA) Printovation Awards in Sydney. Twelve days later, Arria won the president’s award for its window sign at another Sydney ceremony, the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association of Australia (SGIAA) Digital and Screen awards.
Matt Foster, (pictured) print division director for Arria Design Group, says the awards now have pride of place in a wall and table display in its Airborne Road premises in Albany. He attended both the award dinners in the lucky country, receiving a warm welcome from the Aussies. He says it had always been his dream to win a supreme award but to win two in one year went beyond belief.
He says, “Awards were something I looked forward to every year. When we received one I cherished the opportunity to take to the stage with my wife, hand in hand because she always supported me. It was such a blessing to have been awarded two category wins in the 2013 Pride In Print awards but it was only in my wildest dreams that I entertained being the supreme award winner.”
At GASA, Arria won one of only seven gold medals awarded. Judges described the entry as, “a clever long run, automated and precision screen printing job on both opaque and transparent sections. The quality and excitement of screen printing will never die if the Arria collection is an example of today’s screen printing technology and skills.”
Judged across a range of key categories including offset, web, digital (non-variable and variable/cross media), point of sale, outdoor, embellishment/finishing and general, the Printovation Awards recognise innovation, creativity and high quality in print, “by acknowledging Australian creative and print professionals who push the boundaries of print at a consistently high standard.”
At SGIAA, as well as the president’s award, Arria won four gold medals for its The Perfect Gift window sign in the posters category; the Great Barrier Reef postcard, in rigid plastics; the Claude Monet Reading artcard in fine arts; and the Australia Didgeridoo postcard in the People’s Choice award category. The company now looks toward the SGIA awards in the USA and Fespa for 2014.
A manufacturer and wholesaler, Arria creates and produces the designs, which it sells directly to retailers. Foster Screenprinting, the printing arm of the company, specialises in screen printing onto plastics, stickers and overlays, along with more traditional substrates for a range of local and international clients. However it has its own postcard/artcard business and Arria has devoted considerable research and development in this area.
Starting three years ago with its first range of plastic postcards for the Bahamas, it then branched out into the award winning range for New Zealand and a month ago, moved into Australia. It has now begun a range for New York. It manufactures all its raw materials specifically for the products.
