FESPA has received fantastic Award entries from our valued print community. We speak to our esteemed judges, who have given us an insight into what they are looking for in your entries. In part 5, FESPA speaks to Jacek Stencel.

In the final part of our Awards series, we have spoken to Jacek who is the fifth member of our 2019 judging panel. Jacek has over 30 years of experience in the print industry and runs PASJA – a successful print business in Poland, specialising in special effects printing.

What made you want to be on the judging panel of the 2019 Awards?

“First of all, a proposal from FESPA for me to be a judge is a great honour and brings me happiness to be a part of that panel. I’m still working and am an active screen printer with over 30 years of experience in the printing industry. In previous years, my company won many FESPA Awards in different categories. My company PASJA, (established in 1992) in Polish means ‘passion’ - it illustrates clearly that printing for me it's not only business, it is much more. I’m glad that my skills can be used in discovering something new and exciting in entries.”

What are you looking for in an entry?

“One of the most fantastic moments during judging is to be surprised by the quality, perfection, creativity, design, combined technologies and very often creation of new products followed by new advantages/needs of the market. Printing is still an active part of everyday life and thanks to the human creativity and new technologies, it can be still be used on undiscovered fields which is great thing.”

What is your favourite category to judge?

“As I said earlier, I’m a printing fan and love the world of print so it is difficult to choose my favourite category. Closer to my heart are: Serigraphies, Special Effects, Special Effects Garments categories.” Where do you see the future of print going?

“Besides existing parts of market where position of printing is stable and constant, our industry will grow in a few areas. For example, thanks to the sharing of printing technologies and modern finishing processes such as CNC cutting different materials, and special mounting and new lighting systems which can create new products for interior and external decoration industry, POS market, furniture industry or collaboration in marking large sports and museum facilities, allows to manage such a project in a manner and scale not possible a few years ago. Fashion industry, textile, automotive and printed electronics are using printing techniques for creating their goods successfully. High quality, fast reaction, flexibility, eco friendliness, high durability and cost effectiveness makes all those factors important for different new market sectors in printing. Another strong trend is knocking - 3D printing - from small to big scale objects.”

What is the biggest challenge that you feel entrants have?

“Entrants should show what they love in work and what they create with passion. To show how they are discovering new fields of printing, high quality of realisations, new techniques, materials etc. and maybe sometimes breaking some old rules!”

We look forward to welcoming Jacek to FESPA’s Head Office to judge the Awards entries in February. There’s still time to enter the 2019 FESPA Awards, with entries closing on the 25th January 2019. Remember – you don’t have to supply your physical sample until the 20th February 2019.