Who we are

A workshop, not a marketplace

Plenty of sites will take your order and send it somewhere else. We are not one of them. Etchly is the front end of a manufacturing business that has been engraving and printing for Australian trade and industry for more than three decades. When you place an order it goes to a machine in Thomastown, run by people who have made this sort of work their whole career.

That is the whole idea behind the designer. Rather than emailing a sketch and waiting two days for a quote, you lay the job out to exact size on screen, watch the price change as you work, and send it straight to the floor. No artwork setup, no proofing back and forth, no guessing what it will cost.

Our history

The business started in 1987 inside SJ Electric, making switchboard labels for their own jobs. Within months Harold Jackson and Ken Stanley had spun it out on its own and named it Express Engraving, taking on outside work.

Growth was slow through the first decade. The turn came in 1997, when Harold brought in his son Devon Jackson. Devon had come from the music industry, managing bands and marketing, and he took the company after work it had never chased before. Alongside him was the only other employee, Christopher Calleja, whose background was computer programming and graphic design. Between them they restarted the business with a different outlook, and it grew steadily enough to start putting on staff.

In 2006 Devon and Chris bought the company outright from SJ Electric, becoming partners and sole owners. To mark it, Express Engraving was renamed Inscribe Australia and moved into a larger, purpose-built factory in Thomastown. The company became Inscribe Australia Pty Ltd in 2011.

Etchly is the next step in that: everything the workshop can make, opened up so you can design it yourself and order it in minutes.

What we care about

We like this work, and we are fussy about it. The business has been built on what customers told us was wrong, and we have kept investing in the products, the equipment and the way we do things. We would rather make the best version of something with good machines and old-fashioned service than the cheapest version of it.

Quality and workmanship

Every product is checked before it is dispatched. We work to ISO 9001 procedures so the manufacturing process is documented rather than improvised, and all our work is guaranteed. If something is not right, tell us and we will make it right.

Deadlines

We know timing is usually the whole problem. A switchboard cannot be handed over without its labels, and a site cannot be signed off without its compliance plates. Our turnaround targets are published on the shipping page rather than hidden, and if a job is going to run late we tell you instead of leaving you to find out.

Equipment and technology

Our machines are serviced and maintained so they run properly, and we keep upgrading as better methods become available. That is part of why Etchly exists, the same investment, applied to how you order rather than only to how we manufacture.

Support

Every order in your account shows where it is up to, from submitted through to dispatched, with tracking once it ships. Proofs are supplied where a job needs one. If you are unsure which material or process suits your job, ask us, we would rather spend five minutes on that than remake it.

Value

Our pricing is on screen before you commit, and it follows the design: a simpler job costs less. If you are working to a budget, tell us and we will suggest a material or a method that fits it.

The environment

We try to be sensible about waste. Most of our products use adhesives free of petrochemicals, we recycle our offcuts and materials, and we keep an eye on wastage rather than treating it as a cost of doing business.

The people

We are not a group of people turning up to do a job. We listen to what customers actually need, we take care of a project from start to finish, and we have a laugh while we are at it. That is why the work is good. Great people making great products.

Christopher Calleja
Business Development & Projects Manager
Inscribe Australia Pty Ltd

Find us

27 Northgate Drive, Thomastown, Victoria 3074
Pickup is available by arrangement.

Questions about a job, a material, or a deadline? Get in touchor start designing and see the price for yourself.