Once every two years for the past 20 years WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, has offered newspapers worldwide an opportunity to demonstrate their colour printing excellence by organising a printing quality competition. Newspapers that succeed in qualifying for inclusion in the list of the world’s best printers can draw on this distinction to optimise their work processes, motivate their personnel, improve their standing among their readers and convince demanding advertising customers.

Companies from all over the world participated in this year’s competition with a total of 165 newspaper titles. 77 publishing and printing companies from 26 countries have achieved membership in the Color Quality Club 2014–2016. The attached PDF contains a list of the members in the Color Quality Club 2014–2016.

By their successful participation in the competition, the companies have demonstrated that they can supply newspaper printing in outstanding quality and offer readers and advertisers high-quality products. They achieve this by aligning production with international standards, thus enabling them to reliably reproduce colour images and advertisements consistently and with the intended colour effect.

The Color Quality Club is more than a technical printing competition, as it offers the participating companies the additional possibility to benchmark their printing quality against recognised international standards and improve it. Detailed individual reports basis for quality optimisation founded on objective measuring methods and quality judgements by a jury composed of international experts.

“The results of the competition provide confirmation for the successful printing and publishing companies of their successful personnel motivation, correct choice of material, in-depth knowledge of the setting parameters for the entire workflow as well as their skilled use of measuring and control techniques,” says Manfred Werfel, Deputy CEO of WAN-IFRA.

This international quality initiative promotes high-quality colour newspaper printing. The growing number of newspapers going in this direction ensures that readers obtain a high-quality product and advertisers an outstanding advertising vehicle.

A brochure presenting the successful participants will be available at this year’s World Publishing Expo from 13 to 15 October in Amsterdam. More about the Expo can be found at: www.wan-ifra.org/events/world-publishing-expo-2014.