Admore, a division of Midlothian, Texas-based supplier Ennis, Inc. (UPIC: Ennis), took home gold in the Printing Impressions 2016 Gold Ink Awards’ folders category for its Halloween folder “Out of this World.” This is the sixth consecutive year one of their Halloween folders has been recognized, giving them five gold awards and one silver.

“We have been doing Halloween promotions for the past 14 years now and have so much fun doing them, the awards are just icing on the cake,” says Lisa Goebel, Admore’s marketing manager. Their first promotion, a haunted house theme, was originally created to get rid of excess black stock from inventory. Overwhelming customer response was so positive that the promotions have continued. “Each one is so uniquely different it can be hard to pick a favorite. I like to think they play a big part in why Admore does so many custom design folders.”

Admore’s “Out of this World” promotion is an alien that had the misfortune of crash landing into Admore’s parking lot. While repairing his ship he learns how folders are made and upon departure, brings Admore folders back to his home planet. To keep the alien on the front of the folder real and not cartoonish, Admore added 3D digital UV effects to his skin and eyes. To portray the vast expanse of space with the planet Earth they went with a single continuous unglued pop-out pocket that forms the planet Earth when opened. Soft-touch lamination was used over the four-color process printing to add depth and create a backdrop for holographic foil stamped planets and stars. Admore’s UFO—Unidentified Flying Offer coupon—was a custom die-cut spaceship that crash landed into a slit in the pocket of the folder. For added realism, an Admore Folder Times newspaper was created, detailing the crash landing as well as feature columns written by employees.

The Gold Ink Awards were established in 1987 and attract the highest quality work from print professionals and have been deemed the Oscars of the printing industry. Every year thousands submit their print products to over 50 different categories in hopes of taking home Gold, Silver, Bronze or Pewter. Each piece is judged on print quality, technical difficulty and overall visual effect by an expert panel of judges within the print industry.