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Australian digital printers scoop awards in first year of access to PIXIs

Announcement posted by Just Go Write 28 Nov 2008

Australian digital printers scoop awards in first year of access to PIXIs

The Xerox PIXI Awards were opened to Australian entries for the first time in 2008, with stunning results for three of our best.

SYDNEY, November 26, 2008

Three Australian printer providers emerged as winners at the Printing Innovation with Xerox Imaging (PIXI) Awards held at the Chicago History Museum in October. This is the first time since its inception seven years ago that the PIXIs have been open to entrants in the Asia Pacific region.

The annual PIXI presentations reward excellence and innovation in digital printing in the categories Books and Manuals, Collateral, Direct Marketing, New Business Application and Transactional Promotion.

This year’s expanded program of 42 awards were open to a global network of 800 of the world’s top printers in 48 countries. Around 100 companies from the Asia-Pacific region entered, with nine from Australia.

The Digital Centre, based in St Leonards in Sydney, won first prize in the ‘Books and Manuals’ category for its submission, ‘Body of Work - Free Spirit’ in the global judging section held in New York. National Australian company Griffin Digital (PMP Limited) received an honourable mention for their entry in the same category.

Blue Star GO, a division of the trans-Tasman Blue Star Print Group, won one of four ‘Best in Region’ prizes during regional judging in Singapore.

Stuart Collins, Director of The Digital Centre, said about their win: "We were thrilled to learn that our entry was successful in this year’s PIXI awards, especially after seeing the standard of work we were up against. When we were approached by corporate design company Armstrong Miller + McLaren to produce this book, we saw an opportunity to utilise our production expertise in bringing together a mix of embellishment techniques that are traditionally associated with offset printing."

The challenge of the Body of Work brief was to produce a digital book that stood up well against offset printed work. All photography reproduction was managed using colour profiles on The Digital Centre’s Xerox iGen3 digital colour production press. The catalogue contained spot UV throughout, featured a matt celloglazed embossed cover and was perfect-bound.

"For our customer, this catalogue of work was a true revelation that it can be perfect using digital print,” said Collins.

Allan Marden, digital print manager at Griffin Digital described their winning book, ‘Rooftops’, as "a bit of a challenge to produce".

"The text pages are reversed-out images with 90 per cent black toner coverage. Typically, monochrome books have about five per cent type, excluding illustrations. This created some issues when printing, but we managed to get around the problems with the help of the Fuji Xerox technicians adjusting the amount of fuser oil and printing the book in the centre of the sheet,” he said.

Earlier this year, ‘Rooftops’ also won Best Digitally Printed Monochrome Book at the Galley Club Awards in its digital print category.

With participation in the PIXI Awards considered an invaluable opportunity for international recognition, Brett Maishman, Fuji Xerox’s National Commercial Print Business Manager, actively encouraged local customers to enter to promote their exceptional capabilities in digital print production globally.

"This year’s award theme of ‘environmental initiatives in new business applications’ was a particularly good match for the local digital market’s commitment to sustainable practices. The winners have demonstrated sophisticated abilities and innovation such as embracing print on demand, adopting energy-reducing workflow automation tools, and the use of environmentally-efficient papers," said Maishman.

Further information about the global prize winners and the award categories is available at http://www.xerox.com/pixi.

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About Fuji Xerox Australia
Fuji Xerox Australia markets Fuji Xerox and Xerox Products solutions and services throughout Australia. Fuji Xerox’s mission is to be the leader in the global document management market, providing solutions that provide a bridge between the paper and digital worlds and enhance business productivity through the sharing of knowledge. For further information about Fuji Xerox, please visit: www.fujixerox.com.au

For more information and supporting photography:
Suzanne Myerson
Fuji Xerox Australia
02 9856 5106
Suzanne.Myerson@aus.fujixerox.com

Philippa Lowe
Just Go Write
Public Relations – Fuji Xerox Australia
02 9528 8784  / 0414 711 107
pjl@justgowrite.com.au

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