Label Awards: A Hard Day’s Night

Entrants in this year’s TLMI Label Awards competition made the judges work overtime to pick the winning entries. When the dust settled, Label World’s digitally printed label was selected as the cream of the crop.

October 2008 by Tom Polischuk

multipage

Label awards competitions can be rewarding experiences, not just for the the winning companies, but for the judges, too. That’s because whenever a group of people brings together a high level of knowledge and skill and then works hard to accomplish a task, it usually has a job-well-done payoff.

That’s the case with TLMI’s annual Label Awards competition. According to Pat Hague, Awards Competition Committee judge and vice president of sales for Water Ink -Technologies, Inc., the judges are working harder and harder each year because the contin-ual improvements in quality are making the judging more and more of a challenge. “It’s getting tougher to make a group decision on winning entries, especially the Best of Show winner,” he explains. “It’s taking longer because of the number of high-quality candidates.”

Steve Lee, committee chair and vice president of RotoMetrics, agreed saying, “the selection of the winning entries comes down to a fine line. The overall quality was very, very good.”

The 2008 competition enjoyed a typically high level of participation. A total of 51 companies submitted entries—43 North American and eight international. Of the 310 total entries (263 North American, 47 international), 77 award winners were selected including 51 first-place honors.

Lee offered some general observations of this year’s contest. “We are seeing more digital printing each year,” he noted, “and a growing number of packaging entries. We are seeing some very nice work on flexible packaging.” He also made the point that this year’s grand prize winner was, once again, a first-time Best of Show winner.

All the marbles

Talk about synergy! Rochester, N.Y.-based Label World submitted one entry and took home two awards. Its “Parkside Smoked Cheddar Sesame Crisps 1 oz.” entry won first place in the Digital Printing - Food & Beverage Products category, and then went on to beat stiff competition as Best of Show.

According to Label World, the label was part of a new product launch and was printed on silver metalized pressure-sensitive paper to provide a simulated gold. The image was backed with three spots of white ink for opacity on the balance of the label. It was finished with a full overprint of scuff-resistant UV varnish. The label was printed on an HP Indigo WS4050 digital press and varnished and diecut on a Rotoflex VERICUT system.