New Zealand’s Pride In Print awards delivered “simply massive” results for newspaper publisher NZME, while a heatset printer earned a bonus for a challenging newsprint job.

NZME Ellerslie claimed four gold medals and two category wins for production of the NZ Herald.

Operations manager Russell Wieck described his team’s return to this year’s competition as “simply massive”. He said that while NZME “look to deliver a minimum level of success each year”, this result was well above expectations.

“The key factor here is ownership,” he said. “We used to have a top-down focus on quality, but this is very much now a bottom-up focus driven by the print staff.

“Of course, there needs to be expectations, but the delivery of these is in the hands of the operators. A big shout out to the teams involved in delivering these results.”

Judges said the work was “outstanding in terms of print quality, colour, registration and marking – the overall quality is exceptional”.

The 48-page edition, printed at 60,000 cph, “would have been one of 100,000 printed that night, completed in one pass”.

“With newspaper printing we are talking about deadlines measured in hours and minutes. It is a run on the press – there are very little electronics to assist the printer – it is the essence of print.

Another web-offset winner was Webstar Masterton, which won the heatset process category for the Bricks Farm catalogue.

The weekly 1.26 million-copy mailer – 16-page quarto on standard 40gsm PEFC-accredited newsprint – was glued and trimmed on press at 50,000 cph.

Webstar Masterton operations manager Trevor Howard says the competition sample – like other entries from the firm – was “just typical copies” sourced from its fast-paced production line.

Judges said despite the “challenging” newsprint stock, the the catalogue was extremely clean and crisp, with impressive colour consistency achieved throughout. As well as being perfectly trim and square and folded precisely, registration was spot on, and overall it was sharp and punchy, “and simply nice to look at.

“Additionally, given the constraints and challenges presented by the age of the press and some of its design features, it was an extremely well done job.”

Pictured: NZME press manager Scott Cardy who received the award