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INDIANAPOLIS – On the field, the Indianapolis Colts have come accustomed to earning awards.
That notion doesn't stop away from the gridiron.
Stadium Journey Experience has ranked Lucas Oil Stadium the No. 1 stadium experience in the NFL for the last three years.
Now, the Colts creative department can add a top honor to its name.
The Great Lakes Graphics Association named HardingPoorman and the Indianapolis Colts the winner in the 2014 Graphics Excellence Award in "Best Category" for their production of the Colts Cheerleader 2013-2014 Swimsuit Calendar.
It marks the second year the Colts have won the top prize in the calendars category and this year's competition included more than 1,000 entries.
"I think the biggest thing is the quality of the photography," Mindy Wheeler, Marketing Coordinator at HardingPoorman, said of the reasons why the Colts Cheerleader Calendar captured the "Best Category" award.
"As far as the layout and the print production, anything special, we really didn't do much. It didn't focus on specialized coding or it's not a unique layout or anything like that. I think the photography and the quality of the images really stood out to the judges."
Last year's calendar shoot took the Colts to Saugatuck, Michigan, where team photographer Matt Bowen shot each girl in a variety of places.
Upon returning back to Indianapolis, those images were examined before being turned over to Colts Graphics Designer Sherard Allen, the headman in laying out the images into the calendar.
"Finding where and how to make the calendar functional but not take away from the images, which are the focal point of the calendar," Allen said of his biggest worries when producing the calendar.
"For me, the girls and the photographer make my job easy. My job is just not to screw it up (laughs)."
In three weeks, the calendar will move on to the national competition where HardingPoorman and the Colts will try and see if more hardware will be returning to Indianapolis.
"We've enjoyed our partnership for over four years with the Colts," Wendy Miles Robbins, Executive Vice President of HardingPoorman, says.
"We feel like we are an extension of the team and it's fantastic. The creative team here is great to work with."
*A panel of out-of-state judges with extensive experience in printing and print production was brought in to examine the work. Each entry was judged on its own merit in a category with similar printed pieces. The judging criteria included registration, crossovers, clarity and neatness, sharpness of halftones and line drawings, richness and tonal qualities of color, paper and ink selection, ink coverage, difficulty of printing, effective contrast or softness, finishing, bindery and overall visual impacts.
Since 1986, The Great Lakes Graphics Association (GLGA) has been dedicated to advancing the success of the printing and graphics industry. Working together with Printing Industries of America, the world's largest graphic arts trade association, GLGA provides training, resources and a voice of advocacy on both a state and national level.
GLGA is a trade association representing the graphic communications industry in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. The Graphics Excellence Awards (GEA) competition, owned and managed by The Great Lakes Graphics Association (GLGA), is an annual event that recognizes and rewards printing and finishing companies who combine fine craftsmanship with technology in order to produce outstanding finished products. *
