The Dymo Label Maker

 

If you over 25 years old and live in a country that uses the English alphabet, you probably have used a Dymo label maker at some point in your life. The hard plastic embossed labels have adorned everything from file cabinets to sports equipment, lockers to utility panels, notebooks to foreheads, from their invention in 1958 until the advent of digital labelers in the mid 80's.  The daisy-wheeled pistol-shaped labelers and their shiny, brightly colored strips with raised white capital letters may not be as popular now as in their heyday, but they are still available, in new, ergonomic designs.  The classic models can still be found on ebay, at yard sales and flea markets everywhere.

The peel-and-stick plastic labels still have many advantages over their modern counterparts- they require no electricity to produce, the plastic labels don't fade when exposed to the elements, in fact,  they are virtually indestructible. Not to mention that they just look so damned cool. So cool, in fact,  that the look of the Dymo embossed label has been duplicated in several font designs, like “Punch-label” and “Plastique.” The font suggests a low-tech, retro, DIY attitude-  and we here at OBSOLETE are down with that.