Coloreel gives us a competitive edge

Martin Rüden has been professionally active in the world of embroidery for more than three decades. He is the founder and owner of Profilkompaniet, one of Sweden’s largest independent suppliers of promotional apparel, workwear, and gifts. He is passionate about what he does and always wants to make his clients happily surprised by enhancing the quality of the delivery. And that is why Profilkompaniet was the first in the world to offer Coloreel’s sustainable and creative embroideries to their clients.

– Coloreel is the biggest innovation that has happened in the embroidery industry for more than 30 years. Of course, we wanted to invest and join the movement. I trust the team at Coloreel, their knowledge and experience have a wide range, says Martin Rüden.

Local manufacturing in Sweden - key to success

Profilkompaniet has a wide range of products being produced in their in-house facilities, always on the lookout for new trends and advancements in digital manufacturing technology.

– With thousands of productions since 1990, we are humbled to say that we have experience and cutting-edge expertise in the industry. Having our production in-house has been the crown jewel of our work. We don't want the products of our clients to only be the carrier of a message. We want to improve the look and feel of the brand! It is the decoration and value-add from the production that defines whether the product feels "cheap" or surprisingly good, in a unique way. The Coloreel technology enhances that decoration and hence the impression, leveling up the experience, he says.

Invested in Coloreel technology before it was on the market

Martin, being an early adopter, invested in the Coloreel technology before it was out on the market.

– I was given a heads up by someone who I look up to and who inspires me, Reimar Westerlind, who is passionate about new technology and development in the embroidery and promotional industry. For the last decade, he gave me insights as Coloreel developed and then four years ago I put down the payment for a machine that hadn't even been built yet. An investment I have no regrets for. The single-head Coloreel equipment was delivered a while later.

– We still have it! We've done a few upgrades and updates during the years but it is still running smoothly. I am very impressed, Martin says.

About six months later Profilkompaniet decided to also invest in a 4-head Coloreel.

– We can embroider whatever shade we want, minimize thread changes and even add tones to an embroidery. Coloreel is a fantastic Swedish invention, Martin says.

"We can provide more embroidery design options”

The challenge with new technology, Martin reflects, is that it takes time to educate clients of all the possibilities that are now being available. That goes for the designers as well, who for decades have been forced to adjust their designs to the limitations of traditional embroidery technology. They need to have a change of mindset, already on the sketch table.

– They've learned the hard way that their creative ideas are impossible to produce, so they adjust their ideas even before sketching. That needs to change.

– We can now do things that were impossible before! Things we couldn't even dream of. We can now attract clients who we had to turn down earlier due to the limitations of traditional embroidery technology. With Coloreel we can provide enhanced design options and embroideries to our clients, Martin says.

He reflects on all the times he had to have difficult conversations with clients, informing them of how their logotypes can't be reproduced with traditional embroidery technology.

– All those dialogues where I've had to say; Okey, this is how your logo is designed. The gradients are impossible to replicate, if you want the exact copy you'll need to use print, you cannot do that with embroidery. - but now we can!

A sustainable investment

Profilkompaniet has a complete range of production technologies and their machines are the most modern on the market. They are producing products from the screen printing to embroidery, badges, car stickers, signs, banners, rollups, business cards, workwear, and the list goes on. Finding sustainable solutions is however a challenge.

– We always strive to inspire our clients to order products with ethical, ecological, and minimal footprint in mind, and not only go on looks and cost.

That was also one of the reasons for investing in the Coloreel manufacturing technology. Instead of using up to 20 spools of threads for each embroidery, you only need one single spool; that is instantly coloring the thread during production without the need to stop the machine and change the spool. Sustainable, time-efficient, higher quality, and better-looking embroideries are the results.

– Our stock of threads can be minimized. A thread spool is a fresh product, it can get dry and brittle. So having a big stock of spools is not sustainable, nor is the freight of spools. The workflow is more efficient, and we can deliver even faster thanks to Coloreel, Martin says.

Easier to personalize products with Coloreel

Today, there is a big trend of personalization of products and designs. One thing Martin dreams of is how to make the production of personalization more effective.

– It's ever so important to feel unique today, to add components such as names, titles, different colors, or other personal details.

That can be a challenge in traditional embroidery production.

– Mass production of personalized products... that is something I want to use Coloreel technology for, to do more and improved designs that we cannot do with traditional embroidery, Martin Rüden says.