Accolades for UK firms at Fespa Awards

UK printers put up a strong showing at this week’s Fespa Awards, carrying off four Gold Awards on the big night.

London’s Augustus Martin won the Point-of-Purchase, Paper & Board category; Egham-based Signbox won in the Decals category; Digital Plus of Leeds triumphed in Glass, Ceramic, Metal & Wood Products; and Birmingham’s HNS Signs came top of the pack in Non-Printed Signage.

More than 300 guests attended the awards ceremony and gala dinner at the Grand Elysée Hotel in Hamburg.

Switzerland’s Atelier für Siebdruck Lorenz Boegli was the big winner on the night. The fine art screen printer secured four awards including Best in Show for Le Monde des effets in the Special Effects Category.

The Young Star Award and €1,000 prize went to Sandra Zomer of the Netherlands, for Illusive Mind. The People’s Choice Award was won by Omus, Australia for its Louis Vuitton pop-up store.

Fespa chief executive Neil Felton said the event was an opportunity to celebrate with its 37 member organisations: “We’re driven by the mission to help printers build profitable, sustainable businesses, and to spread the word about print’s incredible power to create, fabricate and communicate,” he said.

The evening also marked the handover between Fespa presidents with Christian Duyckaerts, managing partner of Belgian in-store and retail print specialist Retail Communicators, taking over the role from Yasar Güvenen of Turkish print firm Algrup.

Duyckaerts praised his predecessor and said: “Our challenge is to prepare FESPA for 2020, to exploit the area of digital transformation where our industry is facing many opportunities; not just with web-to-print but also with omni-channel solutions and many areas of customisation. We will help our global community to adapt to these new trends and evolutions.”

The Gold Award winners were:

Augustus Martin, UK

HQprint Daniel Ries, Germany

Atelier für Siebdruck, Switzerland

Signbox, UK

Midi Print, Russia

The Look Company, Qatar

Digital Plus, UK

P&P Promotion, Italy

HNS Signs, UK

Classic Stripes, India