ETCETERA / Design Dinosaurs: 8 Dymo Tape
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE DYMO SYSTEM will be chiefly remembered for the bizarre obsession with labelling which it induced in tidy-minded people - especially, it seemed, science masters. By the late Seventies, those characteristic strips of shiny, coloured, self-adhesive tape, with their evenly spaced white block capitals, were everywhere.
Dymo by this time had its market taped, and the styling of the printer reflected the fact. Here was an office appliance that was also a toy, and what the various versions of the printer resembled more than anything was a ray gun. The moulded plastic or chromed steel shell fitted snugly in the hand, with the cartridge of tape housed in an ergonomic pistol grip. You turned a
daisy-wheel until the required letter appeared in a window, then squeezed the trigger; the letter was embossed on to the tape, with a hollow popping sound, and the white letter emerged from the muzzle of the gun. When the message was complete, you selected the scissors icon to cut the tape. Its apparent usefulness - there's rarely a reason not to label something - hid its true selling point: gadget appeal.
An American plumber named De Souza came up with the idea in 1954. It was an adaptation of the technology of the metal-strip embossing machine, once a familiar sight in railway stations and ironmongers. He sold the idea to the International Rotex (later Dymo) Corporation (now part of Esselte-Dymo, the Swedish office equipment giant). It arrived in Britain in 1959.
The hand-held Dymo printers went through many sizes and guises, printing
on to 6mm, 9mm or 12mm tape. But the principle never changed. Former Dymophiles are now busy with their PCs, turning out slick personalised stationery beside which Dymo tape seems as antiquated as the die-stamp. Even with adjustable letter-spacing and, from 1981, a Graphic system for flush, thermally 'revealed' print, Dymo tape has in spirit, if not in fact, already joined the card index, the suspension file, the typewriter and the other memorabilia beached by the computer age.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments