For years, our industry has been searching for a reliable way to print color labels, on demand, on completely blank label stock. That way, you stock a few blank sizes of labels, and then print beautiful color labels, as needed, to be applied to your products. You no longer have to buy many label formats with the color pre-printed, and then print the variable data over these labels as needed.
Our industry also talks about prime labels versus data labels. Beautiful, color labels that make your product appealing, versus white labels, with black data printed on them, for information purposes. It used to be that you had to press print prime labels, using flexographic or lithographic printing. Data labels on the other hand were often printed using thermal transfer printers, at time of use.
But what about labels that have both? Color artwork for your product, but also data that is black on white. Or an industry mandate states that there are colors, or pictograms on your label to visually distinguish product types. What if you could produce all of these labels from blank white stock labels, and not have to purchase and store hundreds of pre-printed labels?
This problem has been solved for many years now. Color, ink jet, label printers have been on the market for decades. But there were definitely some growing pains with both the printers themselves, and the software that drives them. In the early days, you basically needed to be a graphic designer to get the printers to print the image quality that was needed. Not to mention how much the printers slowed down when you turned the quality settings up.
EMP standardized on the Epson Colorworks line of color, label printers several years ago. We picked Epson because our customers were having the most success with these printers. Epson has both fixed print head, fast printing printers, as well as more economical moving head printers that are more made for low volume or on demand printing.
These printers take a good sized roll of label stock that is inside of the printer just like thermal transfer printers. And, EMP has zero pull label rewinders for roll to roll printing. Or if you are just printing labels one at a time, the built in cutters are excellent on these printers.
The last thing is label stock. These printers do take a label that is designed for ink jet printing, and we have many options for these labels. Both stock labels that can be shipped immediately, or custom labels produced in our own label plant.
Whatever your color label printing needs are, we have you covered. If you are looking for a supplier that is an expert in the field and has excellent service, www.emptechgroup.com is always the best place to find us.