Diamond Packaging Wins Three Premier Print Awards
ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Diamond Packaging earned three awards in the 2007 Premier Print Awards Competition, the graphic arts industry’s largest and most prestigious international printing competition. The Premier Print Awards Competition is sponsored by the Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (PIA/GATF). Now in its 58th year, the competition recognizes excellence in print communications and rewards companies and individuals who produce the best in print media.
Competing against more than 5,100 entries from printing and graphic arts firms around the world, Diamond received an Award of Recognition for its 2007 corporate calendar, and Certificates of Merit for the Coty Stetson Gift Set and its Diamondessence combination packaging self-promotional carton.
Michael Makin, president and CEO of PIA/GATF, noted, “Each year, the field of entries brings impressive work from some of the best printers in the world. Only a all number of companies receive any award. Diamond’s craftanship and hard work enabled them to produce three award-winning pieces in the face of some very tough competition.”
Diamond’s calendar is a popular promotional item given to customers and suppliers. The three-panel calendar illustrates many of the company’s internal capabilities, including creative design, stochastic printing, printing and stamping on plastic, spot coating, foil stamping, and embossing. This year’s calendar was designed with a 1950’s retro theme that extends from the header, backer, and calendar pages to the Forte shipper. The header incorporates both paperboard and plastic substrates, which combine to present a three dimensional view of classic hot rods and carhops set against a drive-in eatery. Diecuts in the paperboard header allow the APET insert to be interlocked into the paperboard, creating a slight radius. The classic hot rods were embossed and spot coated, creating a unique visual effect and added dimension. Additionally, the Diamond logo and calendar year were hot foil stamped on one side and printed on the other, simulating a neon sign.
Diamond created a gift set carton for Coty’s legendary Stetson fragrance that is as bold and original as the product. The French straight tuck carton features a combination of foil stamping and embossing that serves to augment the subtle graphic design. The entire front panel was stamped with gold foil prior to printing and embossing. The embossed paisley pattern and Stetson logo above the die cut window combine with a micro-embossed pattern around the perimeter of the carton to create a unique visual and tactile presentation, suggestive of the rugged individuali of the American West. The graphics were achieved by offset printing UV black, one PMS color, and UV metallic gold ink in-line with UV gloss coating. Metallic ink was printed over foil to complement the micro-embossed pattern around the perimeter of the carton.
Diamond’s new Diamondessence combination packaging incorporates a wide variety of styles and materials that truly set products apart from their competition by revealing the beauty of what’s inside. The wrap-around window structure combines package integrity with maximum product visibility by showcasing a diamond as if it floats in mid-air. To achieve even greater shelf impact, techniques such as hot foil stamping, embossing, and specialty coating were also employed. All of the components in the direct mail promotion, including a coordinated brochure and business reply card, were printed utilizing the Diamond TruCOLOR color system.
The Diamond TruCOLOR color system is a proprietary method of color control, color monitoring and color matching, offering unparalleled quality and economic benefits compared to traditional four-color process printing. The Diamond TruCOLOR color system uses six colors to reproduce more than 1000 colors, while delivering near-photographic fidelity from an offset printing process.
The Diamond TruCOLOR color system also incorporates frequency modulated (FM) screening. FM screening is unique in that it varies the number of dots used, as opposed to amplitude modulated (AM) screening, which varies the size of the dot. The 20-micron FM dot eliminates all issues related to screen angles, resulting in oother vignettes and softer color-to-color transitions not possible with traditional four-color process printing.
This year’s winners were honored at the Premier Print Awards Gala on Sept. 9, 2007 at The Chicago Hilton in Chicago, Ill. In addition, all of the winners will be highlighted in the Premier Print Awards Annual, a supplement to the December 2007 issues of both Graphic Arts Monthly and Graphic Design USA magazines.
