Zincopar Wins Quartz Award at Esko World
The Italian packaging firm was honored in the Water Web category for its Brainrot Collectible Trading Card Packaging project.
Updated on Nov. 12, 2026 in eSports
Zincopar received the Quartz Award in the Water Web category at Esko World 2026 in New Orleans, judged among 29 entries from around the world. The honor recognized its Brainrot Collectible Trading Card Packaging project.
Why it matters
The award highlights how prepress optimisation and colour profiling can streamline complex print work. It also signals recognition for packaging production techniques within the international print industry.
The winning project required 15 coordinated designs reproduced with water-based inks, and the team switched from a planned seven-colour process to conventional four-colour process printing. The stub does not report the scoring criteria weights or the other finalists' results.
The players
Zincopar
An Italian packaging company founded in 1938 with production sites in Parma and Treviso.
Esko
A global software and equipment company serving the packaging and print industry, whose Esko Dot Awards recognize excellence in print production.
The details
Esko Dot Awards judges assessed entries on technical print quality, degree of difficulty and Esko ecosystem excellence. Zincopar used extensive prepress optimisation and colour profiling and drew on Esko Quartz Screening, the technology that also received a FlexoTech Innovation Award.
Timeline
1938: Zincopar was founded.
Esko World 2026: award ceremony held in New Orleans.
The Tech Race
Zincopar's win shows Esko Quartz Screening, already honored with a FlexoTech Innovation Award, applied to a demanding flexographic packaging job. The result positions the technology as a competitive option against rival prepress and screening systems used across the packaging sector.
For packaging buyers, the award signals that Zincopar's conventional four-colour process can match a planned seven-colour result on complex multi-design work. Print teams weighing process choices can use this case as a reference for reducing ink and plate complexity.
The takeaway
Process optimisation can deliver the required print quality with fewer colours, lowering cost and complexity for multi-design packaging runs.
Further reading
Explore more eSports coverage for related competitive and industry news.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Africaprint.
