A Preview of the 2020 FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards
Industry experts, FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards Committee members and Association staff gathered Jan. 25-27 at the Hyatt Regency Long Island for the judging of the 2020 FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards. There were hundreds of entries to evaluate—from labels to boxes, envelopes to napkins, narrow web to wide web, and more—but less than 100 received awards.
In terms of quality and pushing the limits of flexography, Awards Committee members believe 2020 is a great year for the annual competition.
“We’re seeing a lot of very high-quality printing,” said Committee Chair Lon Robinson of Tension Corp. “Interesting to see the use of coatings—more tactile coatings in the narrow web and envelope categories. But overall, the quality is very, very good.”
Another Committee member, Harper Corporation of America’s Sean Teufler, agreed about the high quality of prints, adding, “I just would like to see more of them. There’s a lot of opportunity for printers to get recognized if they would just submit samples.”
Committee member Paul Lancelle of Miraclon observed that year after year, the bar continues to be raised. “Looking at the scoring, it’s very competitive. That’s one thing that stood out to me.”
The FTA Awards Banquet—April 19 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus—will reveal all the winners in the 2020 FTA Excellence in Flexography Awards. For now, here’s what Awards Committee members thought about the categories they were assigned to for judging.
Preprint & Corrugated
Geoff Roznak of Further North LLC said the quality of this year’s combined corrugated entries is “really good.” He added: “Nothing really blew the roof off or is going to, but that’s probably because we’re used to it. Quality has gotten higher and higher. It’s harder for us to go ‘wow!’ It just doesn’t do it anymore.”
Speaking to preprinted linerboard entries, Tim Esselman of WestRock CP LLC said there is a much higher level of complexity of print in 2020’s entries. “You’re seeing a lot of good machines out there that are printing good, quality work. And there are a lot of older machines that I’ve seen too that I know of that are still putting out good work. Overall, I’m seeing a greater push in flexography this year than I have in a long time.”
Wide Web (Process)
Tim Reece of All Printing Resources Inc (APR) said the quality of entries was high, imploring judges to dwell on and think about feedback more closely for each entry, whether positive, negative or merely constructive criticism. “And that aspect was really, really good,” he said. “Last year, we’d be looking at probably six things that are of ultra-high quality, and this year there’s that one that really stood out, and then there’s a gap to number two. So quality was still definitely there, still real high linescreen counts, expanded gamut, super small highlights.”
Reece singled out a pair of screening technologies—Bellissima DMS and Project Blue—as gaining traction among print samples. That thought was echoed by FTA Hall of Fame Member Mark Mazur. He believes the overall quality of entries has leveled off in the last couple of years, but that it’s all still very good work.
“It’s kind of hard because you’re taking all this great work, and what you’re trying to do is find the flaws with it,” Mazur said. “And everything is negative. So you’ve got to stop for a minute and think about the positives, and it really is amazing how good the work is. And it’s also amazing how the jobs and colors just pop so much better than they used to. Densities are up, and there’s no longer really any question about whether or not we can compete against offset or gravure.”
Wide Web (Line & Screen) & Mid Web
Caryn Kuehl of ProAmpac noted that this year’s entries included lots of new product lines or printers. “It’s a fresh group of samples. Sometimes you say, ‘Oh, I saw that last year.’ This year there wasn’t a lot of that,” she said. “Especially the napkins this year… they are so crisp and have fine detail, it’s hard to believe they’re napkins. If anything, I thought that’s where I saw the most improvement, or that I saw had best change from last year and previous years.”
Alix Guyot of tesa tape Inc noted that there were some standouts. “There’s still some really good award winners, but not as much competition,” she said. “Definitely in certain categories, the quality is still high. Some categories always are sort of a little lower quality. But we still have some good submissions.”
Envelope
Bill Rund of Mac Papers Envelope Converters Inc said the quality of entries has been consistently high, and even higher this year. “This has been one of the best years in a long time. There’s some notably great entries in process,” he said. “And the quality has been good for years.”
Narrow Web
Remarking on this year’s entries, Bob Loescher of Compass Color & Coatings said he hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. “Initially, I saw some coatings that haven’t been used in a while, like the grit coatings. Seems to go back and forth from that, and then people want to have that soft-touch feel for a while, and then they go to the grit coatings.”
Loescher also spoke to a dip in entries, which he postulated may be due to more acquisitions in the industry. “You’ve got large investment groups that own the businesses now. Before, it was Mom and Dad that owned the business and took pride in getting those kinds of awards.”