Meridian Printing Wins Gold
NEW YORK CITY—Meridian Printing won the coveted 2003 Sappi North American Printer of the Year award at an elegant, black-tie awards gala held here recently.
The East Greenwich, RI-based printer was acclaimed for excellence of printing craftsmanship in its production of the "100 years of Harley Davidson" book, which was printed on 100-lb. Sappi Porcelain Dull Text paper. The 275,000-copy run, for publisher Melcher Media, was printed four-color process with varnish at 250 line screen on Meridian's Heidelberg CD sheetfed press.
As the Sappi North American Printer of the Year winner, Meridian received a trophy and a handcrafted gold medallion.
A Real Fancy Affair
The event, appropriately held at the New York Public Library—the Big Apple's symbolic center of quality literature and printed works—was attended by an array of leading printers, both from the United States and from around the world, as well as representatives from the design industry.
The entertainment portion of the awards program, emceed by 1981 Miss America Diane Powell, featured several Broadway hits by four of Broadway's hottest singer/actors.
Meridian was selected by an independent panel of judges, initially from more than 3,100 entries from over 600 North American and Canadian printers. Entries were judged in a number of categories, including: annual reports, books, brochures, catalogs, magazines and general.
Other North American finalists were Allied Printing Services, Classic Graphics, Woods Lithographics and Quebecor World (both the Jonesboro, AR, and Effingham, IL, divisions).
The award, deemed the Olympic gold medal of printing, was presented to Meridian President Robert Nangle and Executive Vice President Steven Lee by Sappi Ltd. CEO Jonathan Leslie.
"The Sappi Printer of the Year awards are unquestionably the most prestigious in the industry worldwide. They're the Oscars of printing, the industry's equivalents of Olympic golds," says Leslie.
Gold, silver and bronze awards were presented to printers in the four regions worldwide earlier in the year. The 23 gold medal winners constituted the finalists for the international award.
At the ceremony, Sappi named Fontegrafica, of Italy, the 2003 International Printer of the Year for its printing of an elaborate cosmetics book.
Entries were judged on overall appearance, quality of the finishing and the general difficulty of the print job, as well as factors such as dot sharpness, ink density, registration, sheet size, paper weight, screen ruling, stitching and diecutting.
From the left, Meridian Printing President Robert Nangle and Executive VP Steven Lee show off their 2003 North American Printer of the Year award with Kathy Walters, Sappi Fine Paper North America president and CEO.
