Diamond Packaging Wins GDUSA American Inhouse Design Award™ for its 2024 "Suitable for Framing" Calendar
“We're truly honored with this award from GDUSA,” said Dennis Bacchetta, Diamond's director of marketing. “This recognition, along with the wonderful feedback received from recipients, affirms that our skilled craftspeople delivered in creating a work of art!"
Press Release
Rochester, NY – Diamond Packaging today announced it won a coveted Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) American Inhouse Design Award™ for its 2024 “Suitable for Framing” calendar, a popular item given to customers and prospects. It showcases the type of decorative effects that can cost-effectively elevate Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies' brands, including cold foiling, specialty coatings, and embossing.
“We're truly honored with this award from GDUSA,” said Dennis Bacchetta, Diamond's director of marketing. “This recognition, along with the wonderful feedback received from recipients, affirms that our skilled craftspeople delivered in creating a work of art!"
GDUSA’s American Inhouse Design Awards™ is the original and premier showcase for outstanding work by inhouse creatives and their departments. Now in its 61st year, the competition reflects the many and varied ways in which inhouse designers advance the mission of and build value for their companies, institutions, brands, products, services and causes. It also serves as powerful testimony that the inhouse value proposition — creative professionals with a deep and intimate knowledge of the institutional identity, culture and objectives perfectly positioned to deliver effective, authentic and trustworthy communications — is alive and well.
Reflecting the size and importance of Inhouse designers and departments, over 5,000 entries were submitted to the competition this year, with only the Top 10% selected as winners.
Diamond won an award in the "Brochures + Collateral" category for its 2024 "Suitable for Framing" corporate calendar.
The calendar reproduces beautiful and evocative Impressionist masterpieces in a gilded gold frame enclosing works of art from Vincent van Gogh, Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri-Edmond Cross – perfect for a stylish home or office setting. The dimensional picture frame features side closures with locking tabs, allowing the recipient to change the artwork at any time.
The self-promotional piece communicates the company’s high-end branding and sustainability initiatives while imparting unusual depth and distinction through creative design, material selection, and specialty effects.
The calendars were converted utilizing Clearwater ReMagine 30% PCW paperboard, cold foiled, and offset printed with four color process inks, supplied by Ink Systems, in-line with UV matte, UV gloss, and DiamondTexture specialty coatings.
Tightly-registered coatings were used to enhance the design and highlight the individual calendar components. UV matte coating was used on the museum walls. UV satin coating was used on wainscoting, molding, and text to add contrast. Specialty coating was applied to The Starry Night artwork, giving dimension to the brush strokes. Two coatings were applied to the Landscape artwork for a subtle contrast between the color and white areas. DiamondTexture specialty coating was applied to the sand in the Figures on the Beach artwork to create haptic feedback.
Silver cold foil, supplied by Univacco, delivers shimmering metallic effects on the gilded gold picture frame and Diamond Packaging text. Holographic "wave pattern" cold foil, supplied by Kurz, adds more realism to the water in the Boating artwork.
Multi-level embossing lends distinction and depth to the design. Many of the calendar components were embossed, including the picture frame, wainscoting, molding, and leather benches. Multi-level embossing was tastefully applied to individual artwork pieces to add even more depth.
The calendar pages were converted utilizing Domtar Cougar Smooth 80# Text paper and offset printed with four color process inks and UV matte coating. The watermarks of a museum gallery setting add realism and transports the viewer to another time and place. The unique finish and subtle colors beautifully complement the design concept.
The recyclable shipper was converted utilizing Clearwater Candesce® SBS paperboard laminated to E-flute corrugated fiberboard, and offset printed with four color process inks, in-line with aqueous gloss coating. It artfully depicts a wooden shipping crate used by museums for shipping masterpieces.
The calendar header and backer components were designed utilizing recyclable paperboard and manufactured using 100% clean, renewable wind energy, in a Zero Waste to Landfill (ZWL) and Carbon Neutral (Scope 1 and Scope 2) facility.
About Diamond Packaging
Founded in 1911, Diamond Packaging is a WBENC-certified, industry leader specializing in developing innovative and sustainable packaging solutions. Utilizing state-of-the-art technologies, Diamond designs and manufactures folding cartons for the personal care (cosmetics, hair care, skincare, fragrance, oral care, and shaving), health care, pharmaceutical, cannabis, and consumer electronics markets. Its client portfolio includes Bausch + Lomb, Charlotte’s Web, Kendo, L’Oréal, Otter Products, Procter & Gamble, Shiseido, and many other leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Diamond differentiates itself through award-winning creative design, packaging innovation/technical expertise, and its greenbox sustainability initiative. For more information contact Dennis Bacchetta or visit www.diamondpackaging.com, or follow Diamond on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Creative Design
Diamond's award-winning team collaborated to develop another beautifully-decorated structural and ornamental piece:
- The dimensional picture frame encloses four (4) pieces of art and features side closures with locking tabs, allowing the recipient to change the artwork, depending on style or mood.
- Specialty printing and coating effects combined with intricate embossing details create visual interest.
- All cutting dies and counter plates were made in-house by the skillful hands of experienced craftspeople, ensuring the accuracy of each die.
Four Color Offset Printing
Four-color process printing delivers the WOW factor on the calendar and the pages:
- The calendars were converted utilizing Clearwater ReMagine™ 30% PCW paperboard, cold foiled, and offset printed with four color process inks, supplied by Ink Systems, in-line with UV matte, UV gloss, and DiamondTexture specialty coatings.
- Diamond employed its new Heidelberg XL 106 10-color offset printing press, which represents the state-of-the-art in package printing technology, providing an unprecedented combination of cost innovation and sustainability.
- It features Prinect Inpress Control – the completely in-line spectrophotometer that measures and controls color and registers on press at any speed.
UV and Specialty Coatings
Tightly-registered coatings were used to enhance the design and highlight the individual calendar components:
- UV matte coating was used on the museum walls.
- UV satin coating was used on wainscoting, molding, and text to add contrast.
- Specialty coating was applied on The Starry Night painting, giving dimension to the brush strokes.
- Two coatings were applied on the Landscape painting for a subtle contrast between the color and white areas
- DiamondTexture specialty coating was applied to the sand in the Figures on the Beach painting to create haptic feedback.
Cold Foil
Cold foil is a cost effective, in-line alternative to metallized polyester film or specialty foil board. Overprinting offers a limitless palette of color options. Precise registration was maintained between the foil and overprinted inks and coatings:
Embossing and Debossing
Multi-level embossing lends distinction and depth to the design:
- Many of the calendar components were embossed, including the picture frame, wainscoting, molding, and leather benches.
- Multi-level embossing was tastefully applied to individual artwork pieces to add even more depth.
- The visual and tactile effects promote consumer interaction.
Calendar Pages
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The calendar pages were converted utilizing Domtar Cougar Smooth 80# Text paper and offset printed with four color process inks and UV matte coating.
- The watermarks of a museum gallery setting adds realism.
- The unique finish and subtle colors beautifully complement the design concept.
Shipper
- The recyclable shipper was converted utilizing Clearwater Candesce® SBS paperboard laminated to E-flute corrugated fiberboard, and offset printed with four color process inks, in-line with aqueous gloss coating.
- It was designed to maintain integrity of the piece during shipping and storage.
- It artfully depicts a wooden shipping crate used by museums for shipping masterpieces.
Production Credits
Reflecting the size and importance of Inhouse designers and departments, more than 5,000 entries were received overall this year — and a highly selective Top 10% have been selected as winners and presented with a Certificate of Excellence.
Diamond's award-winning team collaborated to develop a beautifully-decorated structural and ornamental piece:
- Dennis Bacchetta | Creative Director, Art Director, Designer
- Maddy Griebel | Structural Designer
Embossing Dies
Metal Magic provided all of the embossing dies after reviewing the graphic and structural design layouts with the Diamond production team.
A collaborative effort between Metal Magic’s designers and Diamond’s lead embossing operator, led to suggestions on optimizing the embossing and debossing dies to add more realism to the design.
The Masterpieces
Learn more about the artists and their masterpieces created during the Impressionist era in late 19th century France.
On February 7, 2017, The Metropolitan Museum of Art implemented a new policy known as Open Access, which makes images of artworks in the public domain widely and freely available for unrestricted use, and at no cost, in accordance with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation and the Terms and Conditions of its website.
It also makes available data from the entire online collection―both works it believes to be in the public domain and those under copyright or other restrictions―including basic information such as title, artist, date, medium, and dimensions. This data is available to all in accordance with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation.
Diamond Packaging 2024 Calendar
