2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards Preprinted Linerboard Winners

The preprinted linerboard category of the 2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards has the same half-dozen judges as the combined corrugated category: Claude Gaudet of Master Packaging Inc, Rick Pomerenka of Printron, Ed Trainor of International Paper, Jason Rhyne of Southern Graphic Systems (SGS), Doug Weiss of Kodak and Brad Gasque of DuPont Advanced Printing. It has the same pair of awards committee members in Geoff Roznak of Great Northern Corp and Tim Esselman of WestRock CP LLC. It had roughly the same number of awards: three gold, three silver and three bronze (no Earth-shattering shake-ups here).

But the story of the various liners—yogurt, water, oranges, dog treats and more than a few beers—which passed under the scrutinizing gaze of judges was the versatility and variety of trends.

“The biggest trend we have seen is the number of colors that have risen on a machine and the ability to raise the bar in linescreen,” Esselman and Roznak explain. “This year, there were several entries with screen counts that were not pushed in previous years, to levels we would not have considered or expected to see.”

Preprinted Linerboard Judges

Preprinted Linerboard Awards, 2014-2018

Indeed, in the comments which accompanied scoring forms, judges called attention to just about every color imaginable, along with a smorgasboard of other specifics: “The green part of the bottle looks incredible; it looks wet.” “Very well executed, especially using only 100 lpi.” “Reverse text in nutritional panel looks great.” “The print quality of the gray screen was excellent.” “Dots look great around the edge of the bowl.” “The dog’s fur looked excellent.” “This was a great execution of line print.” “Design of job required extreme attention to the registration of the blue and black.”

And if there were an award for best comment, or a quote which best captures the goal of many a flexo job, it might be this one: “Good job making the flexo look better than the original offset sample.”

WestRock Company of Canada Inc’s Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt Box was crowned Best of Show in the preprinted linerboard category. “Great tonal range throughout, and color was vibrant and consistent. Excellent highlights in the flower,” commented judges.