Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc. has announced it has won the 2022 Specialty Best in Category Award for Supplier/OEM in the annual PRINTING United Alliance Premier PRINT Awards. The annual competition recognizes the very best in print communications based on quality, creativity and innovation.

The winning entry was the Minolta Embellished Camera Card, designed by Wilson Howe of the National Client Engagement Center IP/PP Senior Specialist for Konica Minolta, as a reproduction of an old Minolta X-700 camera, including mapped and varnished texture to emulate the original camera. The piece showcased the company's high-quality imaging, tactile feel and precision cutting capability of its products and partner products.

"We are extremely proud of this award," said Dino Pagliarello, senior vice president of product management and planning, Konica Minolta. "Our entry not only displays the creativity of our designer, but also the perfect registration achieved from the front to back of this piece, the precise color matching and the realistic textures we can produce using our equipment along with that of our finishing partners. The possibilities in print continue to expand and this piece demonstrates this in remarkable detail."

Originally designed as a gift card holder for a colleague's wedding, the slot on the back side of the camera was used to hold an actual gift card. According to the Premier PRINT Award judges, the piece demonstrated "texture in proper areas — feels like original camera. Good theme, nice balance, like inclusion of card, true to original color."

Designed in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, the files for the Minolta Camera Card included 6mm position marks in prepress to ensure that the printed piece could be cut accurately by the COLEX SharpCut digital die cutter, which adjusts automatically on the fly to match any deviation in the print, such as rotation and skew. The piece was printed on Mohawk Brilliant White Navajo Smooth 160 lb. Cover paper by the Konica Minolta AccurioPress C14000 and employed the use of IQ-501 inline technology to constantly measure every guide mark on the front and back of each sheet and adjust accordingly to keep the piece in perfect registration throughout the run. The IQ-501 also monitors color in real time to ensure a consistent print run.

For postpress and finishing, the printed sheet first received soft-touch laminating on the Konica Minolta AccurioShine 101, followed by 3D varnish supplied by the AccurioShine 3600 with iFoil One. MGI's AIS Smart Scanner seamlessly matched the designed varnish file to the printed file based on a pixel-by-pixel scan of the sheet — another inline piece of equipment that scans every sheet for any deviations. As the last step, the camera cares were cut from the sheet using the COLEX SharpCut Pro.

The Premier PRINT Awards represent the convergence of the most advanced awards programs in the printing industry: SGIA's Golden Image Award, Printing Impressions' Gold Ink Award, Packaging Impressions' Excellence Award and the Print Industries of America Benny Award. The all-inclusive industry competition represents all areas and categories of print — traditional and digital — and highlights the extraordinary work produced by the printing industry for its wide range of customers.