Award showcases Diamond’s inhouse design and decorating capabilities, including cold foiling and embossing.

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, 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 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.

For more information visit www.diamondpackaging.com, or follow Diamond on Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.