So the Jury Week, which has been hectic, exhausting and yet a fulfilling experience both for the Juries in each category and for all of us at PrintWeek India.

We are half way through the Jury Week and we have already reviewed total 12 Quality Categories.

Though exhausting, and exhaustive, the new format of four Quality Categories per day with a group of specialists has been compelling, with full day confabulations sometimes spilling into the next morning.

The following are some of the initial trends we noticed:

• Of the 132 print firms and thousand plus entries, many first time entrants. Plus, entrants from tier-II cities.
  
  
  
   
• Greater emphasis on green plates, eco-friendly inks, FSC type of special papers and smarter processes.
  
  
  
  
  
• CMYK plus one or two special colours is mandatory. Some extraordinary work with 12 colours plus eight Pantone shades. A dazzling array of UV and foil techniques. A learning experience for some of the top brands.
  
  
• Print is ‘only’ 40% of the job. The emphasis is on embellishments in post-press or fabrication or IT data integration.
   
• Categories like labels (self-adhesive) have been absolutely mind blowing. Coffee table books had a wide variety of binding techniques. And magazines were a huge-huge surprise.
   
• Pragati and Manipal and Thomson and Replika and Parksons and Jak have set the standards in the past seven years. Now there are many more contenders to the top spot. And this is great news for our industry.

Zindabad to all of us.