The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) celebrated a successful TIPA Awards ceremony on the opening day of photokina in Cologne, Germany. The ceremony was sponsored by Koelnmesse. A large audience was present to watch the handing over of the TIPA Awards trophies to representatives of the 24 winning companies. The TIPA Awards are considered the most coveted photo & imaging awards. The TIPA Awards 2008 were voted on by the editors of the 27 members magazines at the association's last General Assembly on 11 April 2008 in Rome. When awarding products, TIPA takes into account innovation, ergonomics, design, ease-of-use, efficiency, price/performance ratio and other guidelines. The award categories vary from D-SLR to compact cameras, from printers to software and from scanners to photo kiosks. The blue TIPA Awards logo has achieved great international recognition and prestige. Since its formation in 1991, TIPA has awarded 313 products from 58 companies. Elected as TIPA Chairman in April at the last General Assembly in Rome, Thomas Gerwers addressed the attendees by saying, “Here at photokina there are thousands of new photo and imaging products, but there are only 36 TIPA products of the year 2008”. The executive vice president of Koelnmesse, Oliver P. Kuhrt, was present to honour former TIPA Chairman Juan Manuel Varela for his 17 years of being at the helm of TIPA with the distinguished photokina-Obelisk award. In addition, TIPA announced the launching of a new edition of its website at www.tipa.com. The new website was designed to provide complete information about the non-profit association.
