75 years of Lang+Lang, a story of passionately developing and printing photography up to an innovative global player in digital printing

When Rudolf Lang started as photographer in 1947, nobody could have guessed the company’s international development over the meanwhile 75 years of existence.

Through pictures taken in the professional in-house photo studio or from aerial view, Rudolf Lang was becoming the first commercial photographer in Austria. The bathroom was used as photographic laboratory and the pictures have been developed in the bathtub. From 1951 to 1965 the photo studio with laboratory were located in Linz. 1965 the company moved to Leonding.

1976 Werner Lang took over the company from his father with 21 years and rapidly established new technologies.
Modern lighting systems replaced conventional light emitter. In the darkroom the pictures were still developed manually first and later on replaced by development machines. A milestone was using the first horizontal enlargers from Durst, which projected the pictures on rails directly to the wall.

During the beginning, pictures were still developed by hand in the professional laboratory and the darkroom, while digital machines were then required in the early 90ies. At a company excursion to the Durst company in 1991, an idea for a digital device for picture exposure was born. In close cooperation the Durst Lambda was developed together and the prototype was later installed in Leonding in 1995. The device then became a Cash Cow for Durst. The Lambda was used by Lang+Lang up to 2015 and with our subsidiary company up to 2020, until digital printing then was on the rise.

Lang+Lang has not only developed the Lambda as beta-tester: Also the first hybrid digital printer Durst RHO 160 was launched by Lang+Lang in 2000 and has been expanded over the years. Furthermore Lang+Lang was the avant-gardist with white print in 2003 and the first in 2009 to specialize on digital glass print. When in 2016 the whole know how in different areas had been collected into a new company division, the vision was clear: innovation, technology and digitization should be available intersectorally for diverse niche applications of digital printing and always be developed further. The move into the new company building at Technologiering in Leonding completed this new approach accordingly.

With the foundation of 360 decoro by Denise Lang in 2013, a visionary point of view was created with a focus on individualization and personalization in printing. Thenceforward we have been developing high-value digital prints on a variety of surfaces – from wall over ceiling to façade – for architects, interior designers and end costumers like hotel groups, operating companies, hotelier, schools, offices, hospitals and much more. The entrance of the third generation as well as the technological head start helped with the development of long-durable solutions for architecture and interior design. But the company’s origin – photography – is still playing a big role, as we create a majority of the artworks through our own photographies and reproductions, manual graphic drawings and picture editing.

The successful expansion of the new brand also led us into international markets and projects. So we established our location in Dubai in 2013, 2015 in London and our Hong Kong subsidiary company in 2017. We have been cultivating an international network from then on with design offices, real estate developers and construction companies from all over the world and we have been taken care of projects in Europe, Middle East and Asia; and the expansion also brought us to Germany, as we took over Reger Werbearchitektur in Munich in 2008. In order to really being able to take care of the German market properly, we also created a joint venture with Erler&Pless in Hamburg, so we use a wide spectrum of digital printing on two production locations and three locations of distribution with Munich.

In every crisis, there is still a chance – and so we expanded our business model accordingly by furthering the entrance into the online market and the private sector. We now offer our services for private individuals through personal counseling and projectmanagement, as well as direct selling through our onlineshop Design4Living and so enable our clients to design their home individually with printed pictures, wall coverings, blinds and much more. The Lang+Lang group in third generation stands for innovation and technological progress all around digital printing and is successfully operating in 3 business areas: Architecture and Interior Design, Industrial Digital printing and our onlineshop Design4Living.

We bring your ideas into reality!