Cape-based printers took five of the seven top awards on offer at Wednesday night's annual Sappi African Printer of the Year Awards ceremony held at the Sandton Convention Centre.
This was the 24th year of the Sappi Printer of the Year Awards, which recognise printing excellence on the African continent. Gold award winners in the African leg of the competition will go forward to compete in the Sappi International Printer of the Year competition to be held in New York from 09-11 October 2003.
The five Cape-based gold award winners were:
Hansa ReproPrint for Portfolio South Africa in the books category
Creda Communications for Mintek 2002 in the annual reports category
Trident Press for Oubaai Village in the brochures category
Creda Communications for First Paper Calendar 2003 in the calendars and posters category
J Ryan Printers for GS Peach Halves in the packaging and labels category.The other two gold award winners are:
CPD Print from the Inland region for Image in the magazines category
Pro-Print from the KwaZulu Natal region in the general category for the Johnson & Johnson folder with insertsSilver and bronze awards were also presented in each of the seven categories.
Sappi Fine Paper South Africa Managing Director, Albert Lubbe says, "The competition not only provides local South African and African printers with a shop-window opportunity to display their best work, it also sets benchmarks for industry excellence both locally and internationally."
"Locally the competition allows printers to test their work against the best available work in African markets. For the African category winners, however, the competition provides an opportunity to test their printing standards against best international practice.
"One of Sappi's key roles as a global paper supplier is to act as a leavening agent for print. We try, through this competition and through other measures, to encourage the printing industry to aspire to the highest possible standards. Despite all the talk of the paperless society, print is here to stay and our goal as a key supplier to the global print industry is to help the industry we serve to become ever more competitive and attractive in the global information industry," says Lubbe.
This year's silver award winners were:
Interpak Books, Beith Digital, Hansa ReproPrint and Precigraph (Mauritius) in the books category
Pro-Print, Business Print Centre, Creda Communications and IPC (Mauritius) in the annual reports category
Fishwicks The Printers, Multiprint Litho, Trident Press and IPC in the brochures category
RobPrint, Beith Digital and Creda Communications, Graphica (Reunion) in the calendars and posters category
Kohler Carton and Print, Masterpack, J Ryan Printers and MSM (Mauritius) in the packaging and labels category
Printability, CPD Print, Paarl Web, Creda Communications and Precigraph in the magazines category
Pro-Print, United Litho in association with CPD Print, and Ince in the general category.This year's bronze award winners were:
Capture Press, Trident Press and Graphica in the books category
Trident Press in the annual reports category
Fishwicks The Printers, Mortimer Offset, Mills Litho and Directory Publishers (Zimbabwe) in the brochures category
Fishwicks The Printers, Business Print Centre, Trident Press and Graphica in the calendars and posters category
Kohler Carton and Print, CPD Print, J Ryan Printers and MSM in the packaging and labels category
Printability, Ultra Litho, Precigraph in the magazine category
Fishwicks The Printers, United Litho in association with CPD Print, and Creda Communications in the general category.