Success for FINAT members at awards

At the World Label Association 2007 Awards, nine FINAT member companies won top honors, including eight outright class wins, to enable the self-adhesive label trade association to head the table of the four participating associations.

FINAT managing director Jules Lejeune said: ‘It is nice to know that so many of the world’s top label makers choose to belong to FINAT but we also think that the services we offer to our members are a natural attraction and incentive for these companies, and others, to join us.

‘We are proud they have won and we congratulate them on their achievements.’

There were 27 categories in the ‘World Championship’ and 24 winners and five honorably mentioned entries were chosen by an international panel of judges, drawn from the four participating associations – FINAT, America’s TLMI, Japan’s JFLP and Australia’s LATMA – who met in secret for several hours. 

‘The standard of all the labels was very high, although you will never get absolute perfection. Such is the attention we pay to detail,’ said FINAT’s Tony White, who chaired the panel.

Many of the winners had demonstrated their mastery of printing on difficult materials, including Labelgraphics, of Glasgow, Scotland, who won the Flexographic Line class with their label for Longmorn 16 year old whisky, which is produced at Elgin, Spayside.  The ‘clean, uncluttered label was printed on a difficult felt paper substrate, using flexography to its best advantage…ink lay down was exceptionally good and hot foil used to great advantage. Very neat and sharp,’ said White.

The Flexographic Line/Screen class was won by FINAT member Dow Industries of the USA with a small bight label for the Gillette Fusion Power razor produced in translucent blue and orange inks and ‘very accurate’ embossing which made the logo stand out against a silver background,’ White remarked..

The Letterpress Color Process class prize went to Can Hassas Kagit, of Turkey, for its label for Camel Coffee. ‘It was colorful with difficult-to-print gold lettering which illustrated the coffee product with a very realistic illustration. It was well-controlled use of the letterpress process,’ said White.

The Offset Line class was won by Marzek Etiketten, of Austria, with its deep black and orange label for an Incognito wine bottle label – ‘a very simple label, well printed,’ judged White.

The Offset labels for wines and spirits was won by FINAT Canadian member Tapp Technologies with a label for the Tedeschi Vineyards Maui Blanc pineapple wine produced in Hawaii. ‘The 300-line screen ensured the illustration was well defined and, printed in three parts, the six colors and gold foil could not be faulted,’ he said.

A shampoo label for the Dessange Sublim’ Argan range won the Combination {Printing Line award for JPL Etiquette, of France. ‘It was produced by a combination of flexo, letterpress and silkscreen with hot foil stamping and six colors, all done in one pass. It was going some to get all that done with sharpness and good registration,’ White said.

Another American member, the National Label Company, of Pennsylvania, won the Innovative use of a label press/applications class with an ingenious label for the Pond’s Age Miracle Proof Kit. ‘This label included a plastic disc, covered with titanium oxide powder, which the kit-user put over skin wrinkles at the start of the treatment. It creates a kind of finger print effect which the person can then use as a reference to see how much the kit has improved their skin. The label was printed by flexo with eight colors in a single pass.’

The same company also won the booklets class for its letterpress and offset print processes used to produce a bright orange label for Motrin LB Ibuprofen tablets which required a booklet to contain all the necessary information to the consumer. ‘It had great shelf appeal – you could see it from miles away, and the clarity of the print was very good,’ White said.

Tapp Technologies, of Canada, got the honorable mention for its Rideau Vineyard Jazz 2004 Tempranillo wine label.  ‘It was very evocative of the 1920s New Orleans jazz age and was very, very close to winning quality,’ added White.