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It’s now more than 400 years since the first recorded printed
labels were being produced. At that time they would have been
printed on hand-made paper using relief letterpress type or
images cut into wood or metal, with impression pressure
applied through a wooden hand press and simple screw
mechanism.
THE
‘
PRE
-‘
HISTORY
OF
LABELS
It was a further two hundred years before much began to
change. Yes, the hand presses were now being made of iron
with a lever system to apply pressure, but the paper was still
made by hand. However, by the early 19th century the
industrial revolution was bringing significant changes to the
world of printing – the first cylinder printing presses (powered
by steam), the offset printing process, continuous
papermaking machines.
The 1800s also brought
coated paper, the halftone
process, colour printing – and
a whole host of new label
market application
requirements that were to
see the early beginnings of
what we now call the label
industry. These new 19th
century applications included
automatic volume
production of standard-sized
PREVIEW
LABELEXPO
EUROPE
THE CHANGING WORLD OF LABEL PRINTING
With the FINAT Congress 2013 coming up and the next edition of Labelexpo Europe around the corner, Mike
Fairley looks at how label printing technology has changed over the years and considers some of the press
investment decisions that label converters are facing today.
glass bottles and bottle filling lines, the first canning factories,
the rapid growth of pharmacy products, labels on boxes, labels
on luggage, labels on cigar boxes and bands, matchbox labels
and all at this time now being printed on sheet-fed offset or
letterpress presses.
The first part of the 20th century saw the introduction of the
first narrow-web presses for printing gummed and self-
adhesive tape. The key innovations for the narrow-web printer
were developments by Stan Avery that enabled self-adhesive
Box label
Mark Andy tape and label press
Early Gallus press
Early drinks label
58
FINAT YEARBOOK
2013
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