RICOH Ri 1000 Wins SGIA Product of the Year Award

AnaJet, a Ricoh company and pioneer in the direct-to-garment (DTG) industry, is proud to announce that the RICOH Ri 1000 won SGIA's 2019 Product of the Year Award in the category of “Direct-to-Garment Printers (black shirt).”

The SGIA Product of the Year competition evaluates products that are, or will be, available for sale in 2019. A highly qualified panel of judges from across the printing industry evaluated the annual contest’s 200-plus entries in 72 categories spanning analog, digital, output and non-output technologies.

“As part of our commitment to serve as a strategic partner for our customers, we continually strive to deliver innovative DTG technology that fuels profitability and business growth for users,” explained Karl Tipre, CEO, AnaJet Inc. “We achieved this objective by integrating customer feedback into the design process of the RICOH Ri 1000, making DTG printing easier, more affordable and capable of producing even higher quality results than were possible with past printers. It’s incredible for the machine to be recognized for these features, first as a CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree and now as an SGIA Product of the Year.”

To compete in the category of “Direct-to-Garment Printers (black shirt),” entrants must submit a sample image printed on a black T-shirt. Created by SGIA specially for the competition, the sample graphic tests overall color appeal, tonality, image detail, objective color matching and grayscale color cast.

For accurate results, judging is based on reports generated by the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics at Clemson University. “This is the only competition I know of that reports on the percentage of Adobe RGB a printer can hit,” said Ray Weiss, Director of Digital Print Programs, SGIA. “We’ll display the reports alongside the entries in the Awards Gallery at PRINTING United in October.” Judges also factor in overall printer productivity as they assess image quality.

All SGIA Product of the Year entries will be displayed in the Awards Gallery at the inaugural PRINTING United show on October 23 - 25 in Dallas. AnaJet will provide demos of the winning RICOH Ri 1000 at Booth #1800.