Looking back: Digital winners at PrintWeek Awards

For digital printing, Awards are conferred in three categories — digital printer of the year, digital photo album printer of the year, and fine art printer of the year.

Digital Printer of the Year
This accolade awards the company that best demonstrates a combination of good quality colour results, with innovative applications printed digitally. Besides digitally printed cut sheets, digitally produced applications such as POS/outdoor or indoor signage are also accepted as entries under this category.

In 2023, Ahmedabad-based Letra Graphix won the award. The company was recognised for its quality labels on PP clear on clear, PP white, and PE clear substrates. The company also digitally printed a special colour on foil to generate a copper colour. It produced labels that used both digital and flexo. Its labels boasted gloss and matt varnish, and vignette effects.

In 2022, Hyderabad-based Macro Media Digital Imaging won the award. The company’s samples included three instances of backlit signs printed on fabric, and one wall covering. The company used customised colour profiles. It stitched silicone gaskets on the four edges to insert into the aluminium frame for the backlit fabric graphics.

In 2019, Antz Innovations clinched the prize, recognised by the jury for its implementation of a 3D illusion effect, and its skilful embedding of multiple effects into a single print.

Digital Photo Album Printer of the Year
This award recognises the company that demonstrates a combination of good quality colour results, substrates used, and fabrication of the album including an innovative cover.

In 2023, the award went to New Delhi’s Avantika Printers for the first time. The company submitted albums that used Adobe InDesign and Enfocus PitStop software to ensure the pictures were print-ready. It used the EFI colour profiler suite for colour consistency.

In the 2022 edition of the Awards, the Prism was taken home by Sri Sivarama Digital Press (Printonica), keeping its title from the 2019 edition of the Awards.

Its 2022 samples were designed in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The albums featured different emboss effects, layflat binding, cutting, chromatic cover pages, and wide-angle double-scope views. Printing was done on a variety of substrates. In 2019, the company’s samples featured chromatic cover pages, a golden crystal handle from Swarovski, wide-angle double-scope views, and special boxes to contain the album.

Fine Art Printer of the Year
For this category, judges look for prints, fine art books or art catalogues that demonstrate the highest levels of origination and print.

The 2023 edition of the Awards saw joint winners. The first was Mumbai-based Nisarga Works. The company submitted prints of Theyyam Festival by Sarin Vachal; Limited edition prints of original art by Sudarshan Shaw; print and drop ship for Indian artist, Richa Kshelkar; and The Aksa Collection for Craig Boehman.

The other winner was another Mumbai-based company — Prodon Enterprise. All the prints the company submitted were produced on the Mitsubishi Diamond 1000. The company deployed effects like hot-foil stamping, debossing, satin aqueous coating/varnish, and matt lamination. All of the samples were produced on a variety of substrates.

In 2019, the Dhanvi Rasiklal Shah Arts Company (Marvel Graphic Studio) won the award. The company was recognised for its use of serigraphs, where one could feel the tonal difference in every inch of the prints.

The registration process for the 14th edition of the PrintWeek Awards is online. The early bird deadline for entering the PrintWeek Awards has been extended to 15 July. If you’ve not registered yet, enter now.

The fee for the same will be Rs 3,000 + taxes. After that, the fee will be Rs 4,000 + taxes. The deadline for submissions is 31 July. The Awards Night for the 14th edition will be hosted on 23 September at The Westin Powai Lake, Mumbai.

Participants can register for the Awards by clicking here.