No one should be surprised to learn that Quality Printing Co. of Pittsfield has once again scored an award for its beautiful work.

What's even more satisfying is that it won for its most recent annual calender, "A Closer Look at the Berkshires," which was dedicated to the late Joel Librizzi.

The Printing Industries of New England gave it a Pinnacle Award for Best in Category for the 2010 calendar, which features some of the best local photography in the Berkshires. Librizzi, a longtime photojournalist for The Berkshire Eagle, had been a judge for Qualprint's calendar competition for more than a quarter-century before he died last year.

The past May, the calendar picked up a silver in a national calendar contest, the second year in a row "A Closer Look" had struck silver.

Qualprint also won a PINE award of merit for work it did for Berkshire Money Management in the association's regional Awards of Excellence Competition on Nov. 12

The presentations were made at PINE's 2010 Industry Awards Gala held at the Newton Marriott with hundreds of industry professionals in attendance. The Awards of Excellence Competition attracted more than 200 entries from 35 printing and imaging companies across New England competing in a variety of printing and graphic communications categories such as best annual report, direct mail campaign, corporate identity package, and more.

Panels of three judges with extensive experience in printing and print production were brought in to examine the wide range of work submitted. Tim Burton of Burton & Mayer, Menomonee Falls, Wis.; Paul Schmitz of Schmitz Press, Sparks, Md., and Art Stowe, former president of the Printing & Graphics Association Mid Atlantic were the judges. Each entry was judged anonymously on its own merit in a category with similar printed pieces.

The judging criteria included: registration, 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, overall visual impact and bindery.