中文Entries are now open for the FESPA Awards 2027, the only independent awards programme with 18 categories dedicated to print and signage, and FESPA is using the launch to celebrate the calibre of textile and apparel work that has defined recent editions. With shortlisted entries set to be displayed at FESPA Global Print Expo in April 2027, the organisation is urging print and signage professionals worldwide to submit their best work for global recognition.
The call to entry arrives with a reminder of what excellence looks like. At FESPA Awards 2025, Thailand’s Fine Rock claimed gold in not one but two textile categories, a rare double that speaks to genuine mastery of the medium. In Special Effect on T-Shirts, Garments and Other Textiles, the studio’s “Phaya Nak” entry combined gold foil, puff, silver diamond ink and glow-in-the-dark effects, each layered with precision onto a discharge plastisol base. In the Printed Garments category, “Tiger” applied base white, red, yellow and blue through fine 45 lines-per-inch separations to produce an imposing image.
Scale told a different story in the Roll-to-Roll Printed Textiles category, where Print Works of the United Arab Emirates took gold for work on the Liwa Village Festival in Abu Dhabi. The project required 16,000 square metres of printed fabric, 800 flags and 2,000 police barriers, produced through a mix of UV and dye-sublimation printing chosen to suit each application. It is a vivid example of how textile printing now sits at the intersection of art, engineering and event infrastructure.
Excellence was not confined to fabric. The Printeriors category, celebrating printed applications within interior spaces, was topped by Iwaarden of the Netherlands, whose multisite rebranding of Odido, formerly T-Mobile and Tele2, also claimed Best in Show. The figures were staggering: 4,500 square metres of applications across 225 locations, including wall graphics, window films, acoustic panels and printed polyester felt, installed by more than 60 signmakers over a single weekend.
Encouragingly, the Student category showed real strength, with Satyam Sign India earning gold for “Heads,” a hand screen-printed 35-by-50-centimetre art edition in two colourways. Recognising emerging talent alongside established studios is central to what the FESPA Awards represent: a platform that showcases where the industry stands today while investing in where it is heading next.
What unites these winners, regardless of category, scale or country, is a refusal to settle for the ordinary. Whether a hand-finished t-shirt or a stadium-sized fabric installation, each project reflects genuine investment in craft, technology and the sustainable production practices the industry increasingly demands. The 2027 edition invites businesses across textiles, apparel, interiors and beyond to put their own work in front of that same global stage.
As the only programme of its kind with 18 dedicated print and signage categories, the FESPA Awards offer a genuinely global platform. The message to potential entrants is simple: every gold winner featured here started where every entrant does, with a project they believed was worth submitting. The deadline to enter the FESPA Awards 2027 is approaching, and shortlisted work will gain visibility to thousands of industry visitors in April 2027.
Source: FESPA (www.fespa.com), “FESPA Awards 2027: Celebrating Textile Champions and How to Enter,” 18 September 2026.
Beyond the trophies, the FESPA Awards serve a practical industry function: they document what is technically possible right now, giving converters and printers a benchmark against which to measure their own capabilities. A shop wondering whether it can attempt metallized interior graphics or glow-in-the-dark garment effects can look at past winners and see the standard, then decide how far to push. In a sector sometimes accused of looking inward, a global, independent, 18-category programme is a useful mirror.
The awards also matter commercially, not just ceremonially. For studios and printers, a FESPA gold is a credential that opens doors with clients who may not follow the trade press but recognise a recognised mark of excellence. Shortlisted and winning work displayed at the Global Print Expo in April 2027 becomes, in effect, a live portfolio viewed by thousands of buyers and peers, a marketing channel few individual shops could replicate on their own. That visibility is especially valuable for smaller entrants and students, for whom the awards can be a launchpad rather than merely a trophy. FESPA’s deliberate inclusion of a Student category signals a long-term bet on pipeline: the industry’s next generation of talent is watching, and giving them a stage early builds loyalty to the broader print and signage community. In a sector where skills shortages are a recurring concern, celebrating emerging craftspeople is itself a recruitment strategy dressed as recognition.
For the wider print and signage community, the 2027 edition also reinforces FESPA’s role as convener rather than mere organiser. By tying the awards to the Global Print Expo and threading them through textile, garment, interior and student categories, the programme tells a coherent story about where creative print is heading: more technical, more sustainable, and more willing to span scales from a hand-pulled screen to a stadium wrap. Entrants who take the hint and submit work that demonstrates both craft and forward-looking thinking will be the ones whose names join the roster of past champions the industry already remembers.
