The award recognises the "leading light" of the wide-format print community, culminating in Fespa Digital 2012 in Barcelona.

Wide-format printers in each country were able to vote for their choice of winners, with a total of 6,000 votes being made for more than 400 printers across 40 countries.

This year's overall winner was Rich Thompson of AdGraphics in the US, with Kishore Musale of Classic Stripes in India finishing as runner-up.

Birol Fedai of Sistern Printing in Turkey, Cactus Imaging's Keith Ferrel in Australia and German Simon Pless of Erler & Pless finished third to fifth respectively.

In the UK, Richard Gardner of Gardners finished first, ahead of Speedscreen Creative Print Solutions' Tim Hill. Mark Simpson of Simpson Group and Lascelle Barrow of Augustus Martin were third and fourth.

According to Fespa head of events and new media Duncan MacOwan, only 60 votes separated the top five printers worldwide.

He said: "The calibre and overwhelming number of nominations we received for printers from all over the world for the inaugural Fespa Hall of Fame has been awe–inspiring.

"It really does underline once again Fespa’s strong international audience, and how valued these talented printers are by our industry. To have been nominated by your peers is an amazing achievement – well done to everyone."

Results of every country can be viewed here