November 2021 - Melbourne - NPA has been awarded an Australian National Print Industry Creativity Award (PICA) Gold Medal for its work on the NGB100. The awards celebrate mastery in print, design for print, and in its more contemporary form is now including more obscure and non-traditional print mediums such as digital, point of sale, and 3D.
To manufacture the new $100 banknote, eight different print methods were used: gravure, offset, intaglio, screen, foiling, letterpress, flexographic, and emboss. In total, 25 ink colours were used: ten colour offset, nine colour intaglio, three colour letterpress, one colour screen, two covert offset phosphorescent colours, as well as four varnishes and two embellishments in both hot foil-stamped DOVD and emboss.
NPA won the award for Specialty Printing, which it defined as “printers applying new innovative and current technologies in different way. May include promotional printing, letterpress, architectural printing, glass printing, screen-printing, laser etching or textile printing. Any number of colours, any substrate and printing method."
“Thank you to all who contributed to the production of the new $100, and especially our artists, craftsmen and craftswomen who, in a literal sense, make the brilliant print that we do,” says Dean McGrath, NPA’s Head of Technical Services.