Offset Alpine and Scott Print took out the gold awards for the Australasia region at the Sappi Trading International Printer of the Year awards ceremony in Sydney last night. The companies will go on to compete against printers worldwide for the title of Sappi Trading International Printer of the Year and the coveted elephant trophy.

At the ceremony, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Scott Print took out the gold in the General Print category for its Gumala Presentation Folder while Offset Alpine won the top award in the Magazine Web category for an issue of Vogue Australia. Scott Print also won a silver award in the Packaging and Labels category.

In the Brochures category, Sydney Allen took out the silver while Gunn & Taylor grabbed the bronze. In the newly created Digital category, Valley Edge took out the bronze. Meanwhile, Blue Star picked up bronze in General Print while in Magazine Web, PMP and Hannanprint picked up the bronze and silver award respectively.

Wayne Rau, CEO of Sappi Trading says, “There is no doubt that since Sappi launched the global competition, the standards of Sappi Trading’s customers have kept pace, and in some cases, have even led the way. This year we hope to equal and better our success of 2008.”

This year the awards received 1,593 entries for the competition in eleven categories with the work being printed on Sappi paper the only condition of entry.

According to Sappi, judging criteria for the wards are rigorous with judges examining entries for technical proficiency, overall impact, degree of difficulty involved in the printing process and the quality of the finishing.

Also commenting Tim Schafer, managing director of Sappi Trading Australian says, “Our printers are some of the best in the world. We are proud of the honour they have brought to the region and have confidence that the gold winners will be recognised with an elephant trophy.”