As you can imagine, the main Heidelberg factory in Wiesoch is big and impressive, at least back in the era of these brochures, when the output was high and the machines were large. Here are a couple of shots of the factory, both outside and in.
A big deal in printing, apparently, is the configuration of the rollers, which supply ink to the plate. I was taken by the many drawings of these configurations which Heidelberg supplied to its customers.
In the era of these brochures, both letterpress and offset printing technologies were still widely used, and Heidelberg equipment has always been used for things like foil stamping, die cutting and embossing. Note the photo of Heidelberg’s precision bearings, which are the key to long-running presses.
I’ll end with a couple of images from Heidelberg’s famous presence at the large, every-five-years printing show in Germany called Drupa. The company has always had a very large presence at Drupa and many people measure the success of the entire printing industry based on the volume of orders that Heidelberg takes in during the show. In the photo here from the 1972 edition of Drupa, Heidelberg had 60 different machines up and operating for the crowds.
There is no question the printing industry is shrinking and changing fairly dramatically these days. But from 1961 to 1972 when these images appeared, it was one of the biggest and most vital industries in the world. And leading the way in both quality and technology, was Heidelberger Druchmaschinen AG.
This article was last modified on February 27, 2021
This article was first published on January 25, 2013
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