Konica Minolta Business Solutions Canada (Mississauga, Ontario) has announced that Print Panther (Oakville, Ontario), a high-end printing and finishing company founded in 1997, has won a Gold Leaf Award at the recent 25th Annual Foil and Special Effects Association’s Gold Leaf Awards held in Nashville, Tennessee. Print Panther was the first in Canada to install Konica Minolta’s MGI JETvarnish 3DS and iFoil system. Each year, the Foil & Specialty Effects Association (FSEA) receives hundreds of entries from all over the world that demonstrate the best in foil stamping, embossing and other specialty effects technology. Print Panther was awarded with two Golds and one Silver for the most creative use of foil and embossing labels, the best use of holographic foil, and the best use of digital spot-UV and foil. Print Panther’s winning entries were all printed using MGI JETvarnish 3DS and iFoil technology from Konica Minolta Canada.
“Print Panther is a true visionary and leader in the digital foil and varnish market,” said Norm Bussolaro, Senior Director of Marketing at Konica Minolta Business Solutions Canada. With some of the spectacular work they’ve produced, we knew it wouldn’t take long for them to start gaining North-American-wide industry recognition. They have strong digital and specialty printing expertise, and we’re looking forward to seeing more exciting and new applications to come from Print Panther.” Christine Yardley, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Print Panther, added: “Our vision to foresee the potential and embrace the power of the MGI technology has allowed us to differentiate our offerings and build out a different kind of print shop. The custom finishing we do in-house truly sets us apart. We can now manage complex projects flexibly, more efficiently, and in less time. Our digital focus is really giving us an edge in the marketplace.”
Konica Minolta’s MGI technology is genuinely disruptive and has been featured recently on the covers of several industry publications, including Graphic Arts Magazine. In fact, the list of applications for Konica Minolta’s MGI JETvarnish 3DS and iFoil technology is expected to grow exponentially as the analogue foil and varnish market converts to digital. Basically, the MGI JETvarnish takes advanced finishing to the next level by providing digital spot UV coating in plain 2D and 3D formats, plus embossed and foil textured effects – all in a single pass. The digital spot UV coating is also 100% variable-data capable – including barcode reader options that enable custom spot-varnished prints with unique graphics, text and numeric data, for runs from one to thousands of sheets.
