The New Zealand Sign and Display Awards for 2007 were presented at a glittering ceremony in Invercargill on the 26th April.
Commenting on this year's awards, Robin Mansfield, a retired NZ sign industry executive for over 50 years and one of the three judges said that the quality of entries in computer orientated classes were extremely high, especially with designs produced with applications such as Photoshop, Corel Draw and similar programs.
He said, "It appears that the sign industry in New Zealand is becoming well grounded in the use of these tools in vehicle sign design. The complexity of some the vehicle wraps was evident. Overall quality of entries was high compared with last year when I was also one of the judging panel.
"The quality of entries in the hand crafted categories in the last few years has dropped. The number of entries in hand crafted work was less this year also. Very little gold leaf work in these categories. Watercolour work was average. The largest number of entries were in the vehicle class.
"The self promotional class displayed the natural skill of the sign manufacturer when given free reign. The commercial work place does not appreciate the extent of design flair in the sign industry which is unfortunate because a huge skill base is so under utilised.
"The amazing design work from apprentices bodes well for the future of the New Zealand sign Industry and the best design work was from female apprentices.
Chris Field from Field Sign, another of the judges said, "Overall, I was very impressed with the standard of entries for 2007 although there were quite a few in categories that they shouldnt have been. Hedging their bets I suppose, but they didnt stand much chance when we cut to the bone with what was important in an entry. Also, we had a purge on each category for work that was blatantly other peoples design for logos etc. Vehicles section had plenty of great application but no originality although the eventual medal winners were outstanding.This didnt apply for Out of House category of course. The standard here was great too, excellent examples of quality signwork.
"Digital Print design was always going to be hard to judge as we were looking at photographs only and we had to judge on how visual the entry was primarily, as opposed to how technical, although I was looking at this closely to compare the degree of difficulty if this could be applied over something that had more visual appeal.
"The hand crafted section had some amazing entries, the best I have seen. We culled the simple router cut letters entries and anything that was too computer produced to cut the wood from the trees and we believe the medal winning entries were absolutely first class this year.
"This is my first year as a judge, having been on the receiving end for many years so I had great pleasure in deciding who I thought was deserving of a medal this year. The task was enormous however and took many hours of deliberation. I believe those chosen to be extremely worthy."
The following are the winners.
It should be noted that: Gold was not presented in every category and multiple Gold, Silver or Bronze awards were also presented in some other categories.
Click here for larger images of the winning entries
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Vehicles (Painted and Coloured Vinyl)
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Neon & Illuminated |
Outdoor Digital Imaging Design |
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