The awards, held every two years since 1994, set quality standards for newspaper color reproduction, which increases visual impact and is important to both readers and advertisers alike. The successful newspapers have demonstrated their capacity to print to exacting ISO standards and reliably reproduce color images and advertisements consistently, worldwide, and with the intended color effect.

"The INCQC quality initiative helps ensure that the reader receives an attractive, high-quality product and the advertiser an outstanding advertising carrier," said Manfred Werfel, Executive Director of Newspaper Production at WAN-IFRA, the world's leading organisation of newspaper and media publishing. "For publishing companies, the competition provides a better understanding of the ISO standards to improve the printing process."

The competition requires entrants to print a specific test element and submit examples from production runs over four months. Newspapers that reproduce the element within specific tolerances and present good printing quality are welcomed into the exclusive INCQC.

A list of the 2010-2012 club members, and details of the International Newspaper Color Quality Club, can be found at www.colorqualityclub.org. A book of winning entries will be available at the annual IFRA Expo, to be held in Hamburg, Germany, from 4 to 6 October next. Full details of the Expo can be found at http://www.ifraexpo.com/

Benefits of INCQC membership to newspapers are numerous:

- Meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations about print quality;

- Benchmarking color quality against well-defined standards by participating in the only worldwide newspaper print quality competition;

- Receiving a detailed audit, which highlights areas of strength as well as areas of potential improvement, including the identification of printing defects;

- Providing motivation and justification to staff members for the introduction of required changes;

- Receiving powerful marketing tools for extended business and convincing customers;

- Proven and verified color quality in daily production by keeping demanding standards;

- Testified general printing quality, evaluated under “typical reader conditions”, so the reader obtains a high-quality and attractive product.

WAN-IFRA, based in Paris, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, with subsidiaries in Singapore, India, Spain, France and Sweden, is the global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries. The organisation was created by the merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry.

Learn more about WAN-IFRA at http://www.wan-ifra.org or through the WAN-IFRA Magazine at http://www.wan-ifra.org/magazine

Inquiries to: Larry Kilman, Director of Communications and Public Affairs, WAN-IFRA, 7 rue Geoffroy St Hilaire, 75005 Paris France. Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00. Fax: +33 1 47 42 49 48. Mobile: +33 6 10 28 97 36. E-mail: larry.kilman@wan-ifra.org