Tips | Awards | Why You Should Enter
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The Winners Have Been Selected
On March 26, at the IPMA headquarters building in Kearney, Mo., five printing industry experts came from all around the country to judge In-Print 2012. In-Print is the only printing contest exclusively for in-plants. Jointly sponsored by In-Plant Graphics and the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA), the contest has a reputation as being one of the toughest contests to win in the printing business. That’s because the quality of in-plant printing is so high. As a result, our judges have traditionally spent a lot of time analyzing each printed piece.
To see the full list of 2012 In-Print winners, click the links below:
Our panel of judges this year included:
• Chris Anderson, Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators
• Dr. James Sours, Department of Graphics and Imaging Technologies, Pittsburg State University
• Mark McCarty, Missouri State University
• Matt Doughty, University of Kansas Medical Center
• Larry Clements, Redlands Community College
The judges spent a full day examining the 450+ entries, awarding 35 Gold, 25 Silver, 18 Bronze and one Judges Recognition Award. The two in-plants that won the most awards were the University of North Texas (10) and the University of Oklahoma (9). The University of Texas at Austin took home four awards, while the University of Delaware, Briggs & Stratton, the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, Washington State University and Yale University all won three.
Prizes will be awarded on June 27 during a ceremony at IPMA’s conference, taking place June 24 - 28 in Kansas City.
To pick the winners, judges considered the degree of difficulty required to print a job, and often consulted the entry forms to see which equipment was used. (i.e. A four-color job printed on a single-color press might outweigh a similar job printed on a four-color press.) On the other hand, some jobs with excellent printing, failed to win prizes due to poor stitching.
For a glimpse of what the judging is like watch this video.
Click below to watch videos showing the judges selecting the Best of Show winners:
Over the years, the judges have provided a number of helpful tips on what makes a winning entry. One thing the judges love to scrutinize is the folds on entries to make sure both halves of the sheet line up perfectly. They often eliminate entries that are cracked along the folds because they were either folded against the grain or folded without first being scored. This is the most common reason pieces are eliminated. Also, many entries were eliminated in the past because poor quality copies were submitted, when better copies almost certainly existed.
Here are some other reasons that entries were thrown out. Did you have any of these problems with your entries?
On the entries in our non-offset categories, here are some of the problems judges encountered:
One more tip: Pieces that include a number of different parts (e.g. a direct mail package filled with loose pages, or stationery submitted with a business card and envelope) have not fared well in the past. You increase the chance that the judges will find an error. It's best to enter the single piece of which you are most proud.
For example: One in-plant entered a direct mail package filled with loose pages, some of which had enough blemishes to disqualify the whole entry. But if the pocket folder had been submitted by itself, the judges agreed, it would certainly have won in the folder category. So pick your categories wisely. And simplify.
Often, many in-plants enter the contest right at the deadline. As a result, they don't properly inspect their entries and submit the best copies. This has cost several in-plants prizes, since if they had only sent a copy with better folds and crossovers, they would have won. Instead they were eliminated. Many items have been tossed out for infractions as small as a missing dot in the middle of a solid, or cracking on a fold that hadn't been scored.
You should examine all four copies of your entries in detail--don't just grab any four from the top of the shelf. Look at the folds and registration. Are they perfect? Are there any visible hickeys? Look carefully, because if you don't take the time to scrutinize your entries, be assured, our judges will.
The best advice is to get your press operators involved. Show them the entry form when it first appears each November. Get them interested in saving flawless samples--and put them aside far in advance of the deadline.
Also, and this is extremely important, when filling out the entry form, please check off the correct category. A brochure is not a folder. Often, the people sorting the entries aren't familiar enough with printing to question the category you select. So when judging day comes and the judges see your brochure in with the folders, it is often disqualified--especially if they have already judged the brochures.
Similarly, don't enter process color work in the one-color/multi-color category. (You should know the difference by now.) Your mistake often goes unnoticed until judging day, at which point it's often too late to switch categories.
Awards
In-Print winners will receive elegant plaques, which will be presented at the next IPMA conference. From all of the Gold Award winners, the judges will pick one Best of Show winner from the offset categories and one Best of Show from the non-offset categories. Those in-plants will receive trophies during the IPMA Awards Banquet.
Here's a list of Best of Show winners through the years:
Online Entry Form | Contest Rules/Category List
