If you’ve been a customer of ours for more than a year, you’ll know that our original name was South East Drawing Office. However, at the beginning of last year we abbreviated it to SEDO. People often ask us why we did this, so here’s the answer…

South East Drawing Office
The original company was set up by Brian McGuinness in 2005. Back then, the business mainly serviced government planning departments with in-house printing accounts, most of whom were based in the south east of the country. Hence the name. However, over time the product range expanded and so has the client base, in terms of both what they require and their geographical spread.

The change to SEDO
“Eventually,” explains SEDO Director Andy McGuinness, “we reached a point where we felt that we’d outgrown the name South Eastern Drawing Office. We now no longer just sell plan printers, but we’re involved in signage, production, UV printing and more.” The company has grown into the large- and wide-format print area, supplying printers, scanners, finishing equipment, software and consumables to the public sector, education and in-house print departments.

In other words, South Easter Drawing Office no longer reflected the business the company had become. “We felt that being called a Drawing Office sounded outdated,” continues Andy, “and it had always been a mouthful on the telephone.”

Expanding the brand
Another reason for the change in name was that South Eastern Drawing Office was geographically limiting, while for almost a decade now, SEDO has been working with customers all over the country. “Mike Vincent, our engineer, and Richard Partridge, our Business Development Manager, have just supervised the installation of an Epson SC S80600 printer, a Summa cutter, Onyx software and an Easy Mount laminator in Belfast – about as far from the south east as you can get!”

You could almost say that one job justified the name change alone – but it’s simply one of many as SEDO has expanded countrywide. “The name change reflects that and feels more modern to us as we enter a new stage in the company’s growth,” says Andy.