“To be honored with five awards in this esteemed industry-wide competition is a great affirmation of our high-quality products.”
This sentiment came from Marla Kott, CEO, the Mighty Badge, a past recipient of SGIA’s annual Golden Image Competition award. Now accepting entries for 2019, Golden Image is the printing industry’s premier competition, encompassing just about every category you can imagine for printed products.
It’s known internationally as the most prestigious printing competition recognizing excellence and innovation, giving everyone in the industry a chance to shine and showcase their great work produced with digital inkjet, screen printing, pad printing, embroidery and other technology platforms. All entries get displayed in front of the entire industry at PRINTING United (October 23 - 25, Dallas)
The main goals of the Golden Image Competition are to recognize top-quality industry products, stretch the industry’s horizon, and stimulate the imagination of our community and the products it produces. It highlights innovation and creativity that encourages new markets for printing. Perhaps best of all, Golden Image is a platform for SGIA’s printer members to validate their skills to their customers. You can either tell your customers you’re an excellent printer, or you can show them with your Golden Image awards hanging on the wall.
Judges award Gold, Silver and Bronze in each category, with Gold recipients then eligible for one of four "Best of Show" categories: Apparel, Graphic, Digital and Creativity. All entries are eligible for the "People's Choice" award, determined by PRINTING United attendees.
Golden Image entries are judged by volunteers from SGIA member companies and are chosen on the basis of their technical skills, experience and knowledge in their respective specialties. Many come from companies that have won Golden Image awards. They graciously donate their time and skills for the benefit of the industry and have no interest in the outcome.
Entries are judged on a variety of criteria including:
- Image definition
- Color appearance
- Job complexity
- Color balance
- Gray balance
- Color gamut achieved
- Image quality
- Image resolution
- Creativity
Judging criteria is based on the technology used (e.g., embroidery, inkjet, screen, etc.). Golden Image Competition judges assess the technical accomplishments of each entry, excluding aesthetics from the evaluation and scoring process as much as possible — it’s all about the level of difficulty and quality of execution of the print.
Enter the competition today by visiting the Awards & Competitions section on SGIA.org, where you can view the Golden Image Competition category definitions and judging criteria. Since we are using a brand-new system this year, I recommend printing the entry instructions (the link at the bottom) for reference during the process.
To be eligible, you must be an SGIA printer member. There is no limit to the amount of entries you can submit; the first is free, then $30 each. Once you’ve submitted your entries online, you’ll print the entry forms, which include the required data for the judges. You’ll also get a confirmation email with instructions on how to prepare and ship your entries, as well as the address to the super-secret SGIA Depository where they’re securely stored until it’s time to unpack them for display at PRINTING United.
The deadline for entries to arrive at the official SGIA Depository is October 17.
The clock starts now … Go!