By 2006, the graphic design community was falling hard for the vivid, luminous, and endlessly captivating digital screen. Print, for all its tactile craft and tradition, risked being cast as the reliable but less glamorous option. The question Sparq set out to answer, in collaboration with premium printer JohnsByrne and press manufacturer Komori, was a pointed one: what if print didn't just compete with digital, but showed it something entirely new?

The answer was Reality UV, a concept built on a double entendre as knowing as it was clever. Reality TV had captured the cultural imagination by making the unscripted experience of real people irresistibly watchable. UV printing was doing something equally compelling in the world of print: making images leap off the page with a dimensionality and richness that ink on paper had never before achieved. One was a television phenomenon. The other was a printing revolution. Together they became the creative engine for a piece that was as much showmanship as it was substance.

True to its TV inspiration, the piece was produced with full Hollywood treatment. Komori America Corporation received executive producer credit, while JohnsByrne was named producer and Sparq's Richard Cassis served as director. Every spread was a reality TV spoof — from Survivor to American Idol, Top Model to The Biggest Loser and The Apprentice, each was reimagined to showcase a specific UV printing technique with genuine wit and pop-cultural fluency. The copy was as sharp as the printing. Each page demonstrated a different capability across a range of specialty substrates, all produced on a Komori Lithrone S40 press, die cut, mounted, and finished with glow-in-the-dark spiral binding. The result was a piece where ink, texture, and dimension turned print into a genuine experience. Print that didn't just show up. It showed off.

For JohnsByrne and Komori, Reality UV was both a technical showcase and a creative reengagement with the design community whose work they existed to elevate. For Sparq, it was proof that the right idea executed with real commitment can make an entire industry stop and look twice at a medium it thought it already knew. Nearly two decades later, the piece holds up as a testament to what becomes possible when creative ambition and technical mastery meet: a printed work so rich in dimension and detail that no screen has yet found a way to replicate it.

In collaboration with Komori and long-time print production partner JohnsByrne

DISCIPLINE
Print Communication & Promotion

SECTOR
Luxury Print & Packaging

AWARDS
American Graphic Design Award ✷ 2007