The hard road to digital

Twenty years is a significant part of a life, and it has been – and still is – an extremely positive adventure.

Twenty years ago, starting when digital label printing did not exist, when everything had to be created, it was more a dream than a professional career path.

Our very first machine for labels and packaging at that time was the Omnius. What a challenge to present it to the label industry with its specs: an amazing 7.3m/min in four colors at its very best – when it was working! No tension control, no color control, no partners, no substrate optimized, no interest, no demand from the printers, brand owners or from the industry.

During our very first Labelexpo in Brussels in September 1995, we had a machine on the 3M booth. At that time they were the only substrate supplier with an ‘optimized substrate’ for us. Their product manager ran a lab coater in their US facility and brought several rolls with him... in the plane. He had to pay at check-in for the extra load.

Being local, I was involved in the logistics around that show. Not a lot to do actually, as we had only a few square meters in the corner of the booth. But our engineers used my mobile phone and drained three batteries on top of theirs to get help from Israel to have that machine working. I did not check the bill for that night, but it must have been equivalent to today’s show budget. And finally, just before the show started, the machine printed! No sleep that night, but we had ink on the substrate just in time.

We did not have any European office at that time, and Indigo Europe rented some space in the Maastricht municipality building. I had a desk in the open space just behind the elevator on the third floor next to the staircase. Then we had our own building, and our first demo center.

Read the rest of Christian’s thoughts in L&L issue 5, 2015 or here