Creative Fuel: Finding Time for Design in a Paper Contest

Molly W. Joss

Hi, my name is Molly, and I am a paper junkie. (Ed. Note: Hello, Molly!)
I haven’t sought help for my addiction and probably never will. I love paper — all kinds of paper: slick paper, rough paper, shiny paper and even dull, unvarnished paper. My favorite these days is handmade, translucent paper. It’s not the most workable choice for offset printing, but it’s great fun for handmade greeting cards and decoupage.
While addiction to drugs or alcohol is nothing to make light of, I must say I’m glad to be a wood pulp devotee, and I know I am not alone in my obsession. There are thousands of us, maybe millions for all I know. I do know that some of the best designers are paper addicts. Yet, for some designers paper is the last thing they think about when it comes to creating a design — literally. They do all the design work never thinking about what paper to use. Others never think about it at all — they let the printer or the client decide. Ouch! Such disdain really hurts when one of your favorite places to be is a stationery store.
Sappi Printer of the Year
If there are designers who are paper junkies, somewhere out there someone is pushing the stuff, and the most likely suspects are the paper manufacturers and distributors. Take Sappi Fine Papers, for example. The company is a division of Sappi Limited, a huge multi-national pulp and paper mill conglomerate that started in South Africa more than 60 years ago. Sappi Fine Paper has offices around the world, including Boston, MA. The company used to sell uncoated papers in the United States, but now sells only coated fine paper.
It was Sappi’s desire to bring more graphic arts professionals into a deeper appreciation of the wonders of paper that lead it to create the Printer of the Year awards, one of the oldest and most respected print (and now design) award programs in the industry. The contest is truly an international one, having been held annually in South Africa since 1979, in Europe since 1993, and expanding to North America in 1996.
All submissions must have been printed on Sappi paper. Other papers may be used in the entry, but Sappi paper must be the predominant substrate. Any entry submitted for one of the regional competitions — Africa, Europe, and Trading (a group that consists of Asia, Australasia, Central and South America) — must have been printed in that region during the previous year.
Technical excellence is the most prized aspect of a print entry. Judges also look for work that is difficult to execute, appropriate to its purpose, innovate and nicely and properly finished.
More than 600 printers submitted 2,900 entries n the 2004 North American competition The first stage of the North American awards reveal was in early April when Sappi held a big awards gala in Orlando and handed out dozens of awards. Of the thousands of entries, 36 were chosen as finalists, and of that small, select group, six were chosen as gold award winners. Those awards were presented at the bash in Orlando.
One of the six gold award winners will be selected as the North American Printer of the Year and will compete in the international competition for International Printer of the Year. That big award event will be in Cape Town in October.
The judges, all of whom have established reputations in the graphic arts, use a point system to narrow down the field. All details about the printer and submitter are withheld from the judges. Any judge who has been involved in the production of a particular entry refrains from judging that entry. The final selection must be chosen by unanimous vote of the entire panel and is based on the judges’ expert eye and reaction to a piece.
Sappi Design Awards
As a pilot program for a planned international design awards program for designers, this year Sappi North America held a competition for designers. Sappi requires that all entries to the print competition bear the name of the printer that did the job; the information on who designed the piece is optional. This year, if information about who designed the piece was included on the entry form, that entry was automatically also placed in a design awards competition-1,800 pieces qualified.
The entries for the design awards were divided into one of six categories, the same six used for the printers’ awards: annual reports, books, brochures, magazines, and general.

Two gold award winners from the European competition: at left, Spain’s Rapu won in the General category for an entry printed on Magno Satin; at right, Germany’s Medialis Offsetdruck won in the Magazine category for Squint, printed on Magno Pearl.

A different panel of judges (all designers themselves) undertook the complicated task of evaluating the design award entries. The judges used a set of creative standards developed by Sappi and the judges to evaluate each piece. The standards included: how appropriate the design of the piece was for its designated purpose, how effective a designer developed the concept, and how well the paper selection suited the overall design quality and usage objectives.
Eighteen design companies were given awards for their design work, although some companies won in more than one category or won multiple awards in one category. There were also 18 honorable mentions.
For example, Tiffany & Co. of New York, Carmichael Lynch of Mineeapolis, Chemistri of Troy, MI, and pentagram in San Francisco all won multiple awards. Click here for the complete list of the North American winners and for all regions.
Worth a Look — and Feel
Some of the biggest goose bumps I’ve ever felt in my career in the graphic arts came from seeing and, yes, touching, work that has won a Sappi award. You can get a sense of a piece by looking at a picture and reading a description, but you must see the work to get the full impact. If you get a chance to do that at a conference or at one of the winner’s plants, I hope you will take the time. After all, who could experience something such as a perfectly executed metallic spread done on finely milled gloss stock and not feel at least a small shiver of delight?
I am pleased that Sappi has begun the work of creating a separate awards program for designers, and I hope that one day soon there will be a Sappi International Designer of the Year award program. I plan to bring to you part of the experiences, exhortations, and wisdom from this year’s Sappi design award winners and judges in columns to come, as well as news about the 2005 Sappi design award program.