In awe of innovative vision and immaculate execution - The Noel D'Cunha Sunday Column

Since the 2023 edition, the Jury Week for the PrintWeek Awards have been spread across three days to give the members more time to evaluate the samples and discuss the tech-specs and innovations in greater detail.

The Awards recognise the very best of printing and packaging. There are 35 categories divided into 12 Performance Awards, 18 Quality Awards, and 5 Special Industry Awards. 

This year, the Awards night will be held at The Westin Powai Lake in Mumbai on 23 September.

In its 14th edition, the Awards received more than 250 entries and 800 samples. 

For the Jury Week, the categories were divided into three groups with separate sets of Jury members on each day.

All the samples were coded and the names of the companies were kept secret. The Jury, all experts in their fields, discussed the samples with their peers, and made the final selections.

Based on the Jury proceedings, a shortlist of the contenders for each category has been released (refer to pages 29-55). The winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony on 23 September. 

Noel D’Cunha, the managing editor of PrintWeek and WhatPackaging? magazines says, “The PrintWeek Awards are an industry benchmark, not only because it is the most coveted recognition in the industry, but also because the samples we receive every year are a testament to the creativity and innovation of the Indian printing and packaging industry.”

He adds, “This year, we received a large number of print and packaging samples which are remarkable, a true synthesis of material and technology, and value-addition. I am sure our esteemed Jury members had a great time selecting the best of the best.”  

The PrintWeek Awards 2024 partners are Bindwel; Canon; Heidelberg; Pidilite Industries; SigLoch; NBG; Pratham Technologies; Farb Technologies; Vinsak; Suba Solutions; Artience; U Gro Capital; Indas Analytics; Kala Jyothi, Sona Papers; TechNova; Numex Blocks; and Mark Yi Trac Systems. 

Focus on finishing in the book categories 
Day One of the PrintWeek Awards 2024 Jury Week was organised for the examination of seven categories — Book Printer of the Year (Education), Book Printer of the Year (Specialty and Trade), Book Printer of the Year (Print on Demand — POD), Brochure and Catalogue Printer of the Year, Fine Art Printer of the Year, Newspaper Printer of the Year, and POS/POP Printer of the Year.

All the jury’s men
145 samples across these categories from around 40 companies nationwide were laid out for the Jury members to look at. The jury featured seven members — Rajnish Shirsat, Mukund Moghe, Ritesh Uttamchandani, Bhushan Kolte, Ganesh Kanate, Kiran Bhat, and Dibyajyoti Sarma.

Rajnish Shirsat has been in the print and publishing sector for 30 years. Marketing and sales have always been at the core of his work profile. Today, he is a book creator, author of several books, ghostwriter of many books, and leads BookMyStory Publishing.

Shirsat was asked what impact post-press processes becoming increasingly inline has had on the quality and efficiency of book production. He spoke about a specific sample — Inspired Letters to My Healing Heart. With a run length of 15,000 copies, this entry featured manually stitched threads, perforated pages, and peelable stickers to seal the letters once written. 

Shirsat says, “When I saw this sample, I thought the quantity would range from 200 to 400, maximum of 500. 15,000 makes a big difference with this kind of finish. This is going to catch up and open up many doors from an export perspective. We were very good at doing something in a small quantity, people used to sit and finish off the entire job. When it came to big volume, we were always trumped by China. Not anymore, and that’s what makes me very happy about it.”
Printers as solution providers

Mukund Moghe has nearly 25 years of experience in brand building and management, printing and graphic reproduction, event and promotion management, colour management, and media and advertising. He is currently working with Tata Services in corporate branding and marketing.

This year, the main trend he observed was the sameness in coffee table books. He says, “It’s a repetitive kind of work. After all, this is not in the hands of printers. But I can request the print industry to be a solution provider to your client. Don’t just do a copy-paste job with the files you get from the agency. You are the solution provider between your design agency and your client.”

In the coming years, Moghe says, the print industry has to become a solution provider and not a problem creator. He adds, “Books shouldn’t just be books. They should also be utility items.” 

Minimising the margin of error
Ritesh Uttamchandani is an independent photographer based in Mumbai. In 2018, Uttamchandani self-published his first photobook, The Red Cat and Other Stories. His second photobook, Where Are You, was released recently.

He says, “I am personally averse to overproduced, loud books. People tend to showcase them as their best work. The production wasn’t screaming at me. Printing and all of those things are 20–30% of the work. It’s the finishing, the cutting, the binding that matters. The samples that I really liked were able to minimise the margin of error. That is also because it is a mix of machine and manual processes.”

Uttamchandani doesn’t particularly like hardcovers. He says, “Purely because, as a book producer myself, my target audience is different, real estate’s target audience is different. They tend to become a little unwieldy, they tend to become deadweights after a while, and the glue, no matter how well you apply it, gives away as the weather takes over.”

Bhushan Kolte has been the proprietor of Papyrus since 2018, a company that has a bookstore and publishes independent Marathi literature. He says, “Sometimes, what happens is that the design impresses you quite a lot and puts you in awe of the product, but it misleads you in the context of the book.” 

Kolte picked up Kaarten die Geschiedenis Schreven, which looked like an ordinary map book at first glance. He explains, “Upon further inspection, these are images of old maps, so if I use a magnifying glass, all the details are quite readable. The texture of the paper and other detailing takes you back to that era.”

Functionality as a priority
Ganesh Kanate is currently senior vice-president for corporate affairs at Glenmark Pharmaceuticals. 

Kanate says, “In many of the samples I went through, functionality is the key. People are caring more about the utility of the products than the aesthetics.”

The evolution of post-press
Dibyajyoti Sarma is a publisher at Red River, an independent poetry publishing venture. He says, “Book printers today are more conscious about the finishing and enhancements of the book, not just the printing. Earlier, printers would invest more in the printing machine and less in finishing. Now, printers are investing more in post-press, and everything is inline.” 

Sustainability in packaging
On Day Two, more than 200 samples were available for the jury members to examine. The categories were Digital Printer of the Year; Digital Photo Album of the Year; Innovative Printer of the Year (Paper/Paperboard/Corrugated); Innovative Printer of the Year (PET, LDPE, HDPE, PVC, PP, PS, Metal/Glass); Label Printer of the Year, Packaging Converter of the Year (Paper Bag and Textile Boxes), and Pre-Media Company of the Year.

Apart from the quality samples on display, a highlight was the all-women jury that examined the samples across various parameters. The Jury for the day included Kavita Dalal, Krupa Sheth Kapadia, Mayuri Nikumbh, Priyanka Karyekar, Tasneem Vasi, and Yugandhara Dalvi.

Emerging trends
The Jury was especially impressed with the samples in the Photo Album of the Year category, and rightly so. Until last year, the category was seen playing within limits – glossy printing with life-like colour reproduction, post-press embellishments and the usual binding. All these aspects are still there, but this year’s samples achieved premiumisation like never before. The focus was on the packaging of the albums, not just the albums themselves.

One album came with a literal attaché case. It contained the album. On the inside lid of the bag, there is a video screen playing the images captured in the album. Talk about value addition. 

In the paper bag segment, a simple kraft paper bag was elevated into a luxury item with intricate die-cutting on both sides of the bag, with pasting of a mesh fabric on the side. 60,000 pieces of this premium and personalised bag were produced. 
Among the label samples, the trend was holographic printing effect, followed by matte varnish, gold foiling and velvet finishing.

The digital revolution
Kavita Dalal is a business and content lead at Beyondesign. With over 12 years of experience, she has worked with Clap Global on design and content development and managed a team at 4004 Inc designing university sportswear. 

On how the pandemic affected digitalisation, Dalal says, “Most people moved to doing things digitally, and started exploring digitalisation a lot more. So, pre-media has become easier, more fun to be with, and more accurate.”

She adds, “Digitalisation is there to stay. It is a lot more qualitative, and it is going to thrive a lot more as far as the quality of the production is concerned. And of course, volume-wise, it is going to play a great role.”

Buzzword: Sustainability
Krupa Sheth Kapadia, creative director at Stratedgy, is a designer, typographer, and educator with over 15 years in the industry. Her work spans various sectors including fashion, healthcare, automotive, and FMCG, with clients such as Nestle, Zandu, and Bagrry’s.

Kapadia's take on sustainability is that it is a bit overrated especially when it comes to printing and packaging. She says that the Indian consumer is not ready to pay the premium that comes with sustainability. “Even as designers, when we try to innovate do something, it adds a certain cost, and the consumer is not ready to pay for it, and neither is the client. So, I feel like the Indian market is not ready at a mass level for sustainable packaging,” she explains.

On digital, which was one of the highlights of the day, she adds, “It is evolving as a quick way to produce materials and is cost-effective. What I saw in digital printing was at par with, if not better, than what traditional printing is producing in terms of effects, embossing, metallic prints and inks, and spot UV — you aren’t able to make out what is digital and what is a traditional print process anymore.”

Priyanka Karyekar, creative director of communication design at Elephant Design, has worked with brands such as HUL, Marico, HDFC Bank, Godrej, and Garnier, and later collaborated with Britannia, Tata, Daawat, Nivea, and Hershey's at Elephant. She is recognised as one of India's Top 30 Illustrators and a recipient of the Taxi Fabric Design Award.

On sustainability, she says, “If you have to achieve that bigger goal, then there has to be ownership from everyone involved in the project.”

Innovations: Materials and digital
Mayuri Nikumbh, head of design at Conran Design, is a design professional with over 20 years of experience, having worked with brands such as Abbott, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft. One of the samples that caught her eye was a sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi, made from corrugated board, a material generally considered low in value.

She says, “What was interesting about this was that each layer is specifically cut and pasted together, so it is quite a bit of effort. A lot of manpower has gone into creating something like this, and it was really impressive in terms of a new material to play with. Besides that, I thought some of the books were very interesting in terms of the crafting and printing.”

Tasneem Vasi is the managing director at Ctrl M Print Management India and has worked with global brands such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and L’Oréal. She currently leads Ctrl M’s design studio, focusing on developing comprehensive retail design solutions across India. 

Vasi says, “Digital always impresses. Every year, I’ve felt that something is exciting and new to see. There’s never been stagnation. Digital is being used innovatively, in ways that I have not seen before.”

Yugandhara Dalvi, senior creative director of communication design at Elephant Design, has worked with major brands like Paper Boat and Flipkart. The trends she observed in the samples on display were innovations in anti-counterfeit.

She says, “Digital printing, especially, is a nice innovation in itself. The runs with digital printing are far less. Structurally, I saw some POS/POP samples that were well done. PET printing eliminated the need for glass. Exploration is endless. What I love about digital is that you can print a lot of colours in one go.”

The rise of packaging 
Day Three was set for the examination of four categories. They were Packaging Converter of the Year (F&B); Packaging Converter of the Year (FMCG); Packaging Converter of the Year (Pharma); and Packaging Converter of the Year (Rigid Box).

Day Three saw the most number of samples as compared to the first two days — a lofty 350.

The jury to examine the samples included Amit Saurkar, Deepa Naik, Deepti Kshirsagar Nitin Virkar, Peter KA, Rahul Nainani, and Sanjay Ghoshal.

Amit Saurkar is the group packaging development manager at Marico. He is a packaging professional with more than 14 years of experience in packaging innovation and engineering for a variety of consumer product groups like foods, personal care, healthcare and nutrition.

Saurkar noted the shift that quick service restaurant (QSR) chains made from buckets that had barrier coatings, to buckets without. He says sustainability is now a bigger part of the conversation and that small choices like these, ones that make a lot of difference, are slowly being made by companies.

Deepti Kshirsagar is the co-founder and director of strategy and design at TCT Strategic Branding. She has more than 15 years of experience in strategic branding and packaging design and has been a serial entrepreneur in the design industry. 

Kshirsagar noted the use of various processes like 3D drip from the samples on display. She was also pleased with the structural alignment achieved through print on the packaging. She says, “The samples I have seen so far have great finishing for these reasons.”

Rahul Nainani is the co-founder and CEO of ReCircle, a clean-tech organisation on a mission to drive the circular economy. He has forged long-term collaborations with industry giants, including HUL, UNDP India, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, and Mondelez, among others, aiding them in accomplishing their sustainability objectives.

Nainani observed the lack of sustainable choices, especially in rigid boxes. He says, “I’m not seeing much sustainability. I know it is a client requirement but I don’t think many of the samples here are sustainable.”

Sanjay Ghoshal is the head of packaging, packaging sustainability, and strategic packaging productivity at Diageo India. He has held global Leadership roles in the design, development, and execution of packaging, packaging procurement, and value engineering.

Ghoshal observed the sustainable choices that were made by the companies that entered their samples for consideration. He says, “People are not using metPET so much anymore. I also think they are realising the value of packaging as a tool for branding communication.”

Peter KA is the AVP of packaging development at Godrej Consumer Products. He manages packaging development for the India-SAARC business unit. He says, “Something I have noticed is the innovation in texture and craftsmanship in the samples. The finishing is great and impressive.”

Deepa Naik is the general manager of packaging innovation for India and AMEA. Naik noted the shift to rigid boxes as compared to the previous years. She says, “It is curious to see the shift to rigid boxes from mono cartons. The design and embellishments are to see.”

Nitin Virkar is the chief creative officer at Therefore Design. He is also a potter and has been invited to design schools in the capacity of a mentor for courses in fundamentals of design.

According to Virkar companies that submitted samples made of different substrates did a fairly average job in terms of quality and execution. He says this was in contrast to the samples submitted by companies that specialised in specific categories, like rigid boxes. He adds, “I don’t know what that means in terms of business, but the companies that specialised in a certain thing did a far better job.”