And The Winner Is

Q.C. Packaging Systems takes Best of Show in packagePRINTING's 18th Annual Excellence Awards competition.

Q. C. PACKAGING SYSTEMS (Mississauga, Ontario) will take home this year's Best of Show honors for the intricate printing and packaging of its "Buick Rainier" compact disk case. This entry was the first place winner in the Folding Cartons—Flexo (Process) category.

The consistent color, the diecut registration, the UV inks with water-based coating, and the quality of the flexo printing job made this year's judges of packagePRINTING's 18th annual competition look twice at the CD case. Commenting on the print quality, Clemson University Instructor Dean Gilbert said, "This piece could have been on the offset table."

"The extracurricular work it took to get it [the two piece design] to mate is apparent," judge Cordes Porcher, process specialist-flexography for Bobst Group USA said. And Colin Price, senior account manager for SICPA North American, added that it was "very balanced across the web."

Q.C. Packaging Systems' Director of Manufacturing David Franze offered some insider information into the completion of the difficult project.

"With a remarkable match to the target, this CTP original design ran at 300 fpm, with rotary diecutting in-line. The 4-color process held the 8-point reverse-type text without the aid of a key line, and the backside printing on uncoated board held tight register within two-thousands of an inch to the front-side print," Franze said.

He added that the entry was printed on an Arpeco 22˝ 10-color printing press, with DuPont DPL .45 plates and SICPA UV inks.

Stiff competition

This year, packagePRINTING received more than 256 entries from 52 different companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. Commenting on the overall quality of the competition's entries, Roy Webb, national sales manager for Mark Andy, said, "It's all excellent, there's lots of good product here."