History
1948
Starting modestly for $1500 in Madison, WI, Widen Engraving begins as a photo engraving company for a local newspaper. Widen quickly earns respect for quality and the advanced technology used to produce it. This mentality would become the foundation of the Widen philosophy.
1960
Starting the ongoing tradition of maintaining the latest technologies, Widen purchased the first automated separation camera to aggressively move into the age of color and take on the classification of a progressive prepress organization.
1980
Widen completes an impressive installation of Scitex equipment to become the largest Scitex installation in the Western Hemisphere. Widen advances rapidly in prepress technologies and begins to staff a R&D team placing the organization years ahead of the industry.
1987
Widen customers identify a challenge with prepress file management. Widen invests in new product development - this new product would later be identified by the industry term Digital Asset Management (DAM) for image centralization and retrieval.
1995
Adding resources to provide the next logical step in the graphic arts process, Widen purchases printing presses and enters the short-run print market. Specializing in four and six-color processes allows Widen to focus on providing exceptional color for customers.
1996
Widen releases their first web-based digital asset management system and begins to position software services for prepress customers. Later, Widen would pursue several market segments as a SaaS provider with the Media Collective offering and hold a 10% market share by 2007.
1998
Widen engineers a Global Marketing Approval System that tracks a detailed approval process with time stamping and project approval. The product would become Widen Project Collaboration, the most advanced proof routing system to enter the marketplace.
2000
Continuing to expand into complementary products and services, Widen builds a photography studio with both digital and conventional capabilities. The studio provides the customers of Widen one location for all graphic arts needs from photography to premedia services.
2002
Widen brings image rendering technology to the furniture and apparel markets allowing customers to photograph one product and create an infinite amount of product images with various color and pattern combinations. The technology saves Widen customers hundreds of thousands in costs.
2003
Widen releases the Dynamic Media Building product to elegantly allow end users to build custom brochures and advertisements online, helping customers ensure strong brand consistency throughout their marketing network. The Media Builder addition completes the core suite of the Media Collective.
2006
Widen makes advances in the catalog industry integrating its automated catalog publishing system with the Media Collective bundle of Digital Asset Management resources helping multi-channel marketers improve time-to-market and consistency across all campaigns, catalogs and web domains.
2007
Adding to the toolkit of software-as-a-service applications supporting creative workflows, Widen releases Backdrop - an online photography routing and approval application - developed to streamline the manual tasks of routing photos for creative review and approval tracking.
2010
Widen continues to advance rapidly to stay at the forefront of technology to assist marketing and creative functions. Through customer feedback and market research, Widen aggressively pursues product enhancements and new offerings focused on improving customer profitability.
Google+
