Sappi Fine Paper North America Announces Gold Winners of the 13th North American Printers of the Year Competition

BOSTON, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Sappi Fine Paper North America announced the 10 gold winners of its 13th North American Printers of the Year awards for 2009-2010. The winning entries were culled from a field of approximately 3,000 entries and selected from 55 silver and judges' award winners. Each of the gold winning printers will receive $20,000 in design support of their marketing initiatives for the category in which they won, and will compete for Sappi's International Printers of the Year Awards to be held later this year. For more details, visit: www.sappi.com/na/poy.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100512/NE03576 )

Sappi's Printers of the Year awards competition recognizes print excellence and innovation produced on Sappi papers within the following categories of work: Annual Reports, Books, Brochures, Calendars, Catalogs, Digital, General Print, Magazines and Printer's Own Promotions. All entries were judged by a panel of highly regarded print professionals on the overall impact of the piece, degree of difficulty in the printing techniques and technical excellence. The gold winners of Sappi's North American Printers of the Year are as follows:

"The gold winners of Sappi's North American Printers of the Year have not only demonstrated innovation and printing excellence at its finest but have also illustrated how print continues to be a vital and relevant medium to communicate to audiences today," said Jennifer Miller, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Sappi Fine Paper North America.

To ensure the highest possible standards and integrity, Ken Lantz, Executive Vice President, Managing Director at Pica 9 in New York; Malcom Keif, Professor in the Graphic Communication Department at Cal Poly; Constance Sidles, Print-Production Consultant and Writer; and Bill Garno, Director of Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT) Printing Applications Laboratory (PAL), served as the panel of judges.

The gold winners of Sappi's North American Printers of the Year will compete in October against the regional winners from Africa, Europe and the Sappi Trading (Asia, Australia, and  region Central and South America) for the Sappi International Printers of the Year awards, the only global honor of its kind to recognize excellence in printing.

Sappi's North American Printers of the Year gold and silver winners will also be featured in Sappi's upcoming searchable online database, which will provide information about the award winning printers and their capabilities, printing equipment and location. The database will be available soon at: www.sappi.com/na/poy. For information about Sappi's coated fine papers in North America, visit www.sappi.com/na or call 800-882-4332.

About Sappi Fine Paper North America

Sappi Fine Paper North America is a preeminent North American producer of coated fine paper used in premium magazines, catalogues, books and high-end print advertising. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Sappi Fine Paper North America is known for innovation and quality. Its brand names, including McCoy, Opus, Somerset and Flo, are some of the industry's most widely recognized and specified.  Sappi's mills in North America are triple chain of custody certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI), and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Over 80 percent of the energy used by Sappi's North American mills comes from renewable resources, resulting in one of the lowest carbon footprints of any major North American coated paper supplier. Sappi Fine Paper North America is a division of Sappi Limited (NYSE and JSE), a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with manufacturing operations on four continents in 10 countries, sales offices in over 40 countries, and customers in over 100 countries around the world. For more information about Sappi Fine Paper North America, visit: www.sappi.com/na.

SOURCE Sappi Fine Paper North America