(Watch David Zwang's video interview wth Michael Duggal here.) 

My first introduction to Duggal Photo Lab dates back to my early career as a professional photographer in NYC in the early 1970s. Back then, “Duggal,” which was founded by Baldev Duggal in 1963, was thephoto lab if you wanted to get the most out of your photography. Their museum-quality dye-transfer prints were the mainstay of the big ad agencies and brands in NYC. Their attention to quality and the craft was and still is palpable. Over the years, they continued to grow and expanded the business to include more photoprinting options, sign and display, event and exhibition support, building and vehicle wraps. and even PPE to support the needs of the pandemic. Recently, they installed a Landa S10 and, considering their heritage, I wanted to see how they got there and where they were headed. 

Today the company is run by Michael Duggal, the founder’s son, who joined the company in 1995 to help stabilize and then revitalize the company after the recession and took over as CEO in 2002. Since then, he has led the company and the industry as one of the early adopters of wide-format printing, digital sheetfed printing, CGI retouching, and multimedia displays. They were the first company to wrap a building with wide-format graphics in 1993, and today they are still one of the premier producers of high-quality building wraps, murals, and banners for agencies and designers as well as serving as a trade house to the print and visual communications industries.