24 November 2015

The Solutions Awards: Northern Ireland has a winner!

Congratulations to Northern Irish BPIF member GPS Colour Graphics for achieving an award at The Solutions Awards 2015 on 17 November in London.

GPS Colour Graphics (GPS) had been nominated in two categories of The Solutions Awards 2015, organised by leading graphic arts industry magazine Print Solutions. Winners of the awards for printers, designers, creative agencies and brand owners were announced at a gala event in London’s Café de Paris on 17 November.

Lorraine Bell, Sales Director at GPS, commented: “We were delighted to be nominated in two categories, for ‘solutions for customer service’ and ‘solutions for finishing’. Both areas of our business in which we have innovated to make great advances. We are very grateful for everyone’s support and appreciate each and every vote!"

To be shortlisted for the awards, companies had to show innovation, creativity, and inspiration. The awards went to companies and people who have developed ‘solutions’ to issues within their own businesses. This could be an innovative project, a cost saving exercise, or even the production of a product that solved a problem for a client.

GPS won the 'solutions for finishing' category with its latest newsletter (Power Print) in which they continued its ’10 to the power of’ feature for designers when creating projects for print. Advice on how to ensure a great design works on a practical level was also provided. GPS also wanted to show something different – to really show that print can do clever things.

The newsletter also included information on the company’s oldest piece of equipment, a Heidelberg SBB, which is used to punch jobs to shape. Ideas of the sorts of applications that could be produced were shown. GPS used these ideas to create an innovative and interactive piece of print that embraces the playful side of the reader. The cover showed that if even a complex and clever design is thought through properly, it can work in practice. The cover is made up of emojis with different elements of the smiley printed on different flaps. As you fold each of them over it changes the nature of the emoji on the front cover and gives him different expressions – rather like the old game of Misfits!

Power Print won, scooping 71% of the votes in its category.

‘The Solutions Awards’ is an annual event that acknowledges and congratulates people in the graphic arts industry for creativity, innovation, ideas and inspiration. They are voted for by the industry and the general public via online voting, followed by interactive ‘keypads’ at the event itself.