Perth printing heavyweights Advance Press and Scott Print split the awards at the WA PICAs winning nine golds apiece plus best overall job.

The two companies combined to win half the available gold medals and each won three times more than the nearest competitors, Quality Press and Supa Stick Labels, which bagged three golds each at the ceremony at Perth’s Hyatt Hotel.

The former Geon division, which reverted to its original Advance Press name last year, broke the tie by winning the Best of Category Award for the Argyle Pink Diamonds Diamond Jubilee book, which also won three golds and two bronze.

[Related: More awards coverage]

Scott Print added to its nine category wins with special awards for workforce development, the environment, and the Future Leaders Award for marketing and business development manager Rio Chard.

Scott’s gold haul was down from 16 last year as Advance Press re-emerged as a strong challenger, as it was in the days of Geon ownership.

Advance Press general manager Ian Smith, who led the management buyout last year during the chaos of the Geon collapse, credited the firm’s culture of quality for its awards success.

“We have a history of doing well at awards and customers trust us to do a quality job – as we do on all our jobs,” he says.

“The team all knows what to do and are committed to doing quality work.”

He says Argyle is a quality-conscious client that likes to push boundaries and use different printing techniques, which helped in win four major awards.

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Scott Print sales and marketing general manager Tim Scott says the awards are the result of continued investment in staff and clients that challenge them to do better.

“We really embrace clients that want to push the limits and enjoy working with them on high-end print jobs,” he says.

“To win the workplace development and environmental awards was great, especially back to back for 2013 and 2014, and in particular the Future Leaders Award was special to us.

“To recognise a young female star Rio Chard is great for the industry, and we are proud that more than a third of our workforce are women in a particularly male-dominated industry.”

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Scott expects the company’s investment in two new offset presses, Komori Lithrone GL840-P HUV eight-colour long perfector and A2 LS629 HUV six-colour plus coater, will improve its results next year.

“We are in the early days of our new presses, but the drip-off varnish, and the dry-ink technology is certainly pleasing all of our clients so we can only imagine that pushing to the next level of quality should result in an even bigger and better result for next year,” he says.

The other multiple gold winners were Percival Print & Packaging, Fairfax, and Fast Finishing Services with two each.

This year’s gold winners are:

• Advance Press – leaflets; booklets, catalogues and magazines; calendars; stationery (single); book printing; multi piece productions and campaigns; packaging folding cartons and boxes; packaging other
• Clarity Print Image – embellishment
• East Perth Print – first time entry
• Fairfax Media – newspaper inserts; newspapers
• Fast Finishing Services – finishing
• Percival Print & Packaging – one, two or three colour print; self promotion
• Pilpel Print – letterpress
• Quality Press – commercial poster, showcard, card construction; postcards and greetings; wide format inkjet print more than 1.5m wide
• Scott Print – presentation folders, programmes and menus; booklets, catalogues and magazines; annual report; book printing; best printed entry by an apprentice; design; digital print; innovation or special printing
• Supa Stik Labels – digital print; labels – offset roll fed – wine and beverage; labels – offset roll fed – other;
• SW Precision Print – best print piece by a country based printer
• WA Newspapers – newspaper inserts;
• Worldwide Printing Solutions Osbourne Park – stationery (sets)

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