OUR HISTORY (Thirty Years of Innovation)
Digital Design was established in 1980 as a full service product design firm with a charter of providing innovative engineering, leading edge manufacturing practices and long-term product development solutions for our OEM business partners.
In 1984, Control Print introduced ACCUPRINT, the first successful small character ink jet industrial printer based on the Siemens Drop on Demand(DOD) printhead technology at the PMMI-Pack Expo Show in Chicago. The key features of this technology are the simplicity of use and the low cost to operate. Unlike other ink jet technologies, DOD is a non-pressurized method of non-contact printing. It has been proven to be the method of choice for coding or marking containers such as glass or plastic containers, automotive components, over wrapping films, cosmetics, health and beauty aids and industrial products. By applying very brief electronic pulses to a piezo crystal, the fluid compartment is momentarily compressed which forces the ejection of droplets. As the nature of DOD is basically droplets at rest waiting for the electronic impulse, there is virtually no evaporation of the ink. As such, additional fluids to compensate for the evaporative losses are not required.
Because of the success of the ACCUPRINT, it became apparent that Control Print needed to partner with a development and manufacturing company that was capable of taking the ACCUPRINT to the next level with lower costs and enhanced features. As a result, in 1985 Control Print aligned with Digital Design as their engineering and manufacturing partner. It was the beginning of a long relationship. Digital Design's talent for creatively applying electronic microprocessor based technology was a key component in the cost reduction and manufacturing aspects.
Digital Designs role resulted in the advancement of small and large character ink jet printers through the use of our core expertise in design, engineering and manufacturing techniques. In 1991, Digital Design took over production of the ink jet product line for Control Print .
Avery Dennison, Inc. sold Control Print in October 1994 to Domino Printing Sciences PLC, based in Cambridge, England. Digital Design continued to supply the small and large character printers to Domino for the next three years. In 1998, Digital Design, Inc acquired the complete rights to the Control Print product line of ink jet printers. New development efforts were begun which resulted in the GENESIS small character printer, a rejuvenated Econo-Jet small character and three new multi-line large character printers.
The ink jet industry printing is constantly evolving.
In 2004, Digital Design realized that the next major industry change would have to address the maintenance issues that are required on any ink jet system. Digital Design entered into a partnership with Hewlett Packard to use their thermal ink jet technology(T.I.J) in a new industrial high resolution printer.
The EVOLUTION had begun ......
In February, 2005 the EVOLUTION I was introduced which utilized the highly reliable thermal ink jet cartridge from Hewlett Packard. EVOLUTION was capable of delivering high quality prints, consistent reliability and all while being " Virtually Maintenance Free".
EVOLUTION I was the first in a series of printers that has been designed at a price competitive with contact style “roller coders” still being used in production today. It was in 2005 and still continues today to be the "Lowest Cost" industrial high resolution ink jet printer available in the marketplace.
2007 saw the introduction of the next generation in the Evolution product line. The EVOLUTION II incorporates all of the available software options in the EVOLUTION I and adds a number of new features. EVOLUTION II uses a backlit WYSIWYG display, has the ability to print up to four lines of text and includes eight of the more popular barcode symbologies.
In 2009, Digital Design became a licensed partner with LEXMARK. This partnership soon resulted in two new EVOLUTION LX printers based on the Lexmark thermal ink jet cartridge that were introduced to the packaging industry in January of 2010.
Octuber 2010 will also see the release of the EVOLUTION III. This unit will features a touch screen controller with the ability to control up to eight(four on each side of the production line) printheads. It will be capable of printing a label like area of 2 inches high by 24 inches long.The print area can be made up of graphics up to 2 inches in height and alpha/numeric characters up to one inch heigh. Barcodes are also a part on the system and are generated through the controller.