If you look around your home or office (or home office), you’ll notice numerous examples of what I’ve referred to in the past as “stealth printing,” printed materials that don’t fall into what we consider commercial printing, but is a huge market nonetheless. For example, a few of the objects in reach as I write this: the letters printed on my keyboard. The button identifications—stop, rec, vol—and the brand name on my digital voice recorder. The word Swingline on the top of my stapler. The word Staples on the top of my USB hub. Examples are everywhere (sit in your car for a few minutes and you’ll lose count of the examples), and they all comprise what is known as industrial printing, printing that is done as part of the process of manufacturing some kind of object, as opposed to commercial printing, in which the printing itself is usually the manufactured object.

So some examples of industrial printing—sometimes called functional printing (although that term is coming to refer to something else, more akin to printed electronics)—are the button labels on a TV remote control, the gradations on a syringe used in medical applications, the control panels and decorative trim on large appliances like washing machines and dishwashers, the instrument panels in automobiles, and many many many more. Industrial printing is not just strictly functional, though.

“It is truly a marketing [application], you’re branding the image,” said Chris Demell, technical sales manager, digital, for TransTech, a Carol Stream, Ill.-based industrial decorator that prints a wide range of materials that includes keychains, sporting goods, household appliances, automotive parts, medical and pharmaceutical products, electronics, and more. “You’re putting on a logo of some sort.” Think about the Samsung logo on your mobile phone, for example.