2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards Mid Web Winners - Flexographic Technical Association

In no category of the 2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards was the new definition of what constitutes an award-worthy print more evident than mid web. The 10 awards given out in this year’s competition—three gold, three silver, four bronze—marks a 33 percent drop in total awards, a 40 percent drop in silver awards and a 50 percent drop in gold awards from one year ago, and is the fewest in the category since 2014.

Led by Anderson & Vreeland Inc’s Alix Guyot and ProAmpac’s Caryn Kuehl, the judging group—Chuck Buscaglia of Berry Global, Johnny Dye of Accredo Packaging, Ron Premo of ProAmpac, Ed Dedman of Zeller-Gmelin, Catherine Haynes of All Printing Resources Inc and Bill Poulson of Harper Corporation of America—was not easily impressed. When a particular area of an entry did stand out, that did not automatically advance the print to the awards deliberation stage.

And even if an entry scored well in each criterion, unless the overall job was challenging by 2018 standards, it was left out of consideration for an award.

Mid Web Judges

Mid Web Awards, 2014-2018

Scoring sheets tell these stories: an entry with a high degree of difficulty, that judges said was a “nice print on a difficult substrate/ink combination,” received no award. An entry with three “nines” for its dot/screen/vignette and three “twos” for its consistency received no award. An entry with either an “eight” or “nine” from each judge on every area of its level of execution grading, but was deemed only a “medium” degree of difficulty, received no award. Those prints that did take a gold, silver or bronze did something not every printer could, did it well and did it consistently.

The Cappy Infladitos Queso y Mantequilla Justice League Wrapper, printed by Industrias de Plásticos SA de CV, took Best of Show in the category. Judges said the job had “very tight register with excellent fades. Good proof match and good solid ink coverage. Plus, it’s Wonder Woman!”