Regulars / The Mike Fairley column | 39“When I started working for Labelexpo in 2004, I remember Mike introducing me to the industry and the wonderful people within it. He was so patient with me and so generous with his knowledge. He never lost any of his enthusiasm for initiatives and projects that we took on over the years. It has been such a pleasure to have worked with him, and to witness how he brought about brilliant collaborations and ideas to the industry.”Jade Grace, portfolio director, Labelexpo Global SeriesTaken at Labelexpo Europe 2017, this picture shows 150 years of industry experience. L&L founder Mike Fairley, Denny McGee and Dilip Shah, MPS of industry association events in Europe, right up to making plate-ready flms. working with the main flm producers to North America and Australia. Such was the This was not completely new technology develop new, thinner, fexible, dispensable demand for market and trends information, to me as I had previously been at the and highly printable PE, PP and PET label even by major labelstock suppliers, that forefront of introducing photo- and flms; undertaking UV ink projects; and I was by now providing workshops to computer-typesetting and page make-up initiating some of the early inkjet label management, sales and production workshops to the newspaper world when I printing trials.employees in Fasson, Rafatac and Jackstädt was working at PIRA in the early 1970s.facilities in Europe and Australia, as well as So, alongside Labels & Labeling Spreading the wordFasson in the US. magazine, a separate label consultancy The label consultancy was also busy The 1980s was also an intense period company also was formed. This I used as researching and writing all kinds of in the early development of today’s a vehicle to work with emerging supplier technical and market research publications sophisticated pre-press systems with the companies, interested groups and product during the second half of the 1980s and introduction of digital design technology by teams to provide research, solutions and much of the early 1990s. DISC, Barco Graphics and Purup. Technology development projects and support to Market reports covered Europe, with that was to enable a designer to create further grow the industry. separate studies on the UK and France, as and place on a computer screen all the Key initiatives during the 1980s included well as Japan and global trends. Technical elements for producing labels. This included bringing materials and equipment suppliers reports included thermal labeling, label positives, negatives, screened text, key lines, and converters together to successfully applicators, barcoding, food labeling and logo scanning, choke and spread, step-and- trial and launch new thermal labelstock other label legislation, flmic label stocks, repeat, text rotation, barcodes and dispro, materials for retail weigh-price labeling; in-house coating, counterfeit deterrence “When I made my frst baby steps into labels, Mike already had gray hair, and I looked up at him with great respect. The articles, interviews and papers he wrote were for me a great foundation to build upon. Later on, I had the opportunity to work closely with him during Labelexpo shows, setting up ‘the experience zone,’ to meet with him around the world but also to visit him at his private house. His lady made nice English sandwiches and he talked about the pheasants and foxes that roam around in his garden. The purpose of that visit was to ask his opinion about some new developments we had in mind. We went in with full confdence and left with a puzzled mind. It was not the feeling we were looking for initially, but afterward it helped us to challenge our ideas from different angles and that’s exactly what we wanted and needed. Mike has written articles that as I was reading, I asked myself ‘Mike, are you sure that’s going to happen?’ History has proven him right in most cases. A karaoke evening in Tokyo in Filip Weymans, Xeikon1987 during a Finat tour to JapanOct - Dec 2022