LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Mimaki celebrates the creative competition Gin Label Contest with the award ceremony
Wednesday 05. February 2020 - Gin Label Contest - Mimaki Germany initiated a competition in the summer of 2019 that was designed for all advertising technicians, print service providers and young professionals. In the Gin Label Contest, participants were asked to design a label for a fictitious gin bottle and produce it using digital printing. 147 applicants, including 50 entrants, brought their creativity and technology together on a gin label.
Four jurors (Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director of Mimaki Deutschland GmbH, Bettina Tabel, Professor of Industrial Engineering Media at the Stuttgart Media University, Horst Rothenberger, Technical Support Specialist Avery Dennison Graphics and Reflective Division Europe, Wolfgang Plonner, Managing Director of WNP Verlag) examined the labelled gin bottles and crowned three people as winners. Seven other exhibits also convinced the judges.
Further nominations of the best 10: Christina Pribitzer and Manuel Zechner (Cake Kommunikation), Cüneyt Gürkan (LSD GmbH), Markus Tuma (Teibrich GmbH), Paul Papalecca, Peter Barczynski (DCC Dirtbike Custom Collabo), Renate Gresser (RG Design GmbH), Robin Miller.
First place winner Oliver Teutsch showed the way to stand out from the crowd: Not only the reduced, unconventional label design, but also the fine plotting work with the presentation of the Stuttgart timetable was highly appreciated. Demi Wäckerle also played with features of the city (topography, name “STR Gin”) and the relief effect created by clear varnish made her work something special. A well thought-out data creation with UV printing on both sides, which is only possible with digital printing, brought Michael Hochkirch third place. “We would like to thank all participants for their time and effort. The quality of the labels exceeded our expectations, we ourselves received inspiration and the decision was not easy,” commented Hisashi Takeuchi at the award ceremony.
Mimaki organized a get-together for the winners, jurors, partners and visitors at its own booth on January 30, 2020. The winners received a trophy, a certificate and the prize (Gold: Japan trip, Silver: Amsterdam trip, Bronze: 500 voucher from Avery Dennison). Michael Hochkirch was not able to visit the fair due to scheduling reasons, instead his Mimaki dealer Werner Diekmann from EPS Elektronische Publishing Systeme GmbH accepted the prize. Furthermore, all ten exhibits were presented at the Mimaki booth during the fair.
Mimaki as a guide to label production
Label production is a core business of many advertising technicians. Besides the Gin Label Contest Mimaki showed own creations with different machines as well as media and informed the visitors about the latest trends and possibilities of label production.
Mimaki UCJV300-75: The UV-LED roll printer enables high quality printing on various media, which is not compatible with a solvent or latex printer. At the Wetec, the metallized polyester film was used to appeal especially to the brand owners from the luxury segment.
Mimaki JV300-160 Plus in combination with the CG-FXll160Plus cutting plotter: The new solvent printer printed various motifs in one go with special orange ink. Bar codes were printed next to each file so that further processing (cutting) could be done without interruption. This new RIP function “ID Cut” is suitable for small or personalised label production to save time and material.
Mimaki CJV300-160 Plus: The Print & Cut machine proved that precise contour cuts are also possible with an integrated solvent printer and cutting plotter. Technically sophisticated labels with fine curves and corners illustrated the high quality of the machine.
Fascination 3D printing
This year Wetec opened a new program called “3D Print WORLD”. On the special area (Hall 3, Stand 3B72), Mimaki exhibited the 3D full-colour printer 3DUJ-553 and the small-format entry-level model 3DFF-222. The purpose of this exhibition and the technical lecture “Div3Deeper-10 million colors in a new dimension. 3D printing as the future model of sign making” was to inform visitors to the exhibition about new opportunities, difficulties and problems of conventional 3D printing methods. Miriam Irie, 3D product specialist of Mimaki Deutschland GmbH, summarized her trade fair experience: “We met with great interest and great curiosity. Our visitors were particularly fascinated by the variety and intensity of colors and the richness of detail in our samples and the opportunity to take our 3D prints in their hands. Enthusiastic about the high response of the visitors we could answer many questions about 3D printing, the Mimaki technologies and application possibilities of both systems in the sign making industry and hope to have opened up new ways in sign making in the future.