The 2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards break a streak that extended back to 2014 (and further for some specific categories) where, year after year, printers exceeded judges’ expectations, and judges gave out more and more awards. This year, something changed. No longer were tight registrations adequate; they had to be tighter. An image couldn’t just be sharp; it had to be sharper than a well-seated doctor blade. Prints which weren’t consistent from repeat to repeat were consistently passed over. Ink coverage that wasn’t complete and even? Judges can’t even.

For more than 500 entries, those judges evaluated each print’s degree of difficulty and level of execution. They quarreled over attributes like consistency, image sharpness, defect detectability and ink coverage. They debated fiercely—huddled around and crouched over a narrow web entry, standing single file and eye level with a combined corrugated print—which deserved a gold, silver or bronze award. In selecting a Best of Show from a category’s gold-award winners, they went for the proverbial jugular, calling attention to the slightest fault in pursuit of establishing a shining example of what flexography is capable of producing. In the end, a total of 114 prints received an award.

“Growth—technical and practical—cannot happen unless we are all pushed, shoved, prodded into action,” said M.M. Lomont of The Quaker Oats Co, on stage more than three decades ago at Forum 1983. “And we are quite good at this sport. We know how to push and we won’t quit.”

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Join the Excellence in Flexography Awards Committee

Each January, dozens of industry experts come together to evaluate and critique the hundreds of prints entered in the Excellence in Flexography Awards. Judges spend several days examining everything from registration tolerances and tonal range, to substrate printability and ink coverage, to consistency and image sharpness, and other characteristics. See the best of the flexographic industry, up close, by becoming a judge in the Excellence in Flexography Awards.

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