PRINTING United Alliance has announced that Pinnacle Awards 2026 program is now open for submissions through April 10, 2026. The awards recognize products that are driving the future of the printing industry with exceptional contributions in quality, capability, and productivity. The Pinnacle Awards program is a competition created for manufacturers, OEMs, and suppliers with three main categories: Output Devices; Non-Output Devices; and Technology, defined as follows.
The Pinnacle Award – Output category requires that entrants print out a provided two-page IT8 target for submission. The IT8 target is then measured using an X-Rite i1iO and Maxwell software. The IT8 measurements are totalled, and the winning recipient is the best in each subcategory. This competition is solely based on math.
Pinnacle Awards – Non-output: This non-output category recognises products that improve or advance the printing industry with exceptional contributions to quality, capability, and productivity.
Pinnacle Awards – Technology: It honours the development of technologies predicted to significantly impact commercial printing, digital textiles, packaging, screen printing, wide format, and related industries.
New Categories for 2026, this year, in response to industry feedback, the Alliance is introducing three new Direct to Film categories within the Output portion of the competition. These new categories reflect the rapid growth and innovation happening in direct-to-film printing: DTF to Garment Printers – Black Shirt; DTF to Garment Printers – White Shirt; UV-DTF to Rigid Substrate.
Pinnacle Award product submissions can be made online at https://pinnacleawards.printing.org/. Winners will be celebrated across various Alliance channels and during PRINTING United Expo, taking place this year from September 23-25 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
