The SNAP Committee is supporting participants from North America and Central America in the 2012-2014 International Color Quality Club competition. The printed newspaper faces stiffer competition than ever before from electronic media and magazines. The 10^th annual INCQC evaluation has been significantly restructured to focus on the most important newspaper quality objective; taking newspaper color reproduction quality to the next level, in line with ISO 12647-3 process and color standards for newspaper quality. 

Past participants in the International Color Quality Club will find significant changes in evaluation and scoring methods for the 2012-2014 INCQC competition; gone are the subjective evaluations for a color ad and photograph, and multiple press runs. The new evaluation criteria are based on objective reproduction quality targets and the ability to deliver accurate and consist results over a 3-month sampling period. Participation in the 2012-2014 International Color Quality Club will be in 4 categories: cold-set offset on newsprint, heat-set offset on newsprint, heat-set on SC or LWC, and printing on colored newsprint. Evaluation is based on reproduction accuracy of the IFRA Cuboid color target, with a format of 42 X 28 mm; which will be integrated into the daily ROP between January and March 2012.

The threshold to achieve the INCQC certification has also changed, the INCQC award is solely based on achieving the minimum points. So the only competition is you, not from other INCQC participants.