VIDEO: ASL Print FX Celebrates Success and Future with Domino
ASL Print FX is a premier supplier of pressure sensitive labels. As described on the homepage of their website, ‘For over 50 years, ASL Print FX has been Trusted to Bring your Brand Vision to Shelf.’
Travis Pollard
It was Fall 2020. ASL Print FX received the exciting news that they were awarded First Place from TLMI for excellence in technical achievement in printing. The category: ‘Digital – Inkjet – Wine & Spirits – Color Process – Prime’. As we approach the one-year anniversary of this exciting occasion, we celebrate and honor ASL Print FX in their success, continued growth, and winning formula for providing ‘brand differentiation’ for their customers. Making their customers’ brand vision a reality.
ASL Print FX is a premier supplier of pressure sensitive labels. As described on the homepage of their website, ‘For over 50 years, ASL Print FX has been Trusted to Bring your Brand Vision to Shelf.’ They provide custom labels to happy customers all over North America.
We caught up with Travis Pollard (Vice President & General Manager – Napa, California) and Stacy Daly (Executive Vice President) to learn more about their business and the secret to their success. ASL also shared some exciting news about what’s next for their company. The interview was captured in this video: VIDEO: ASL Print FX & Domino.
ASL is a brand built on trust.
Pollard begins, “ASL is a brand built on trust. It’s also a brand built on understanding, and it’s a brand built on not only advancing our own initiatives, but those of our customers.”
“We currently have 10 employees, we’re doubling our size, and we’re growing exponentially. We have two facilities in the greater Toronto area; one facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and our facility here in Napa, California. Our primary market is wine and spirits, but we’re a fine printer for all different types of products. And we do that through efficiencies, and we execute at the highest possible level in the industry.”
“Every label that we print is its own custom project.”
Pollard continues, “Every label that we print is its own custom project. It can require foil stamping, or embossing, or variable data or sequential numbers, and we have the tools to do that with our MPS EF SYMJET ‘powered by Domino’ hybrid press.”
ASL Print FX added this hybrid press to their label printing arsenal for a total solution. It provides versatility and unlimited possibilities which allows them to compete in several markets at the same time. Couple that technology with their culture of innovation and a highly trained and knowledgeable workforce. ASL believes that surrounding great people with new technologies enveloped in a package of service, is a wonderful recipe that is hard to compete with.
“The right equipment that complements our customers’ vision.”
Daly explains that having the right label printing equipment is essential in not only delivering on the project, but in helping customers achieve their vision. “I like to say that when people walk into this building, I want it to feel like they’re on the Starship Enterprise. We research very well to find the right equipment that complements our customers’ vision… that’s our mission statement…to bring your vision to life. I believe that the inkjet technology is the future, because it does stretch the envelope of what we do every day.”
Pollard then provided a quick overview of their hybrid press. “This is our MPS EF SYMJET. It’s a hybrid press that combines digital and flexographic printing. It comes with a web cleaner, corona treater, lamination tower, a Domino print engine, flexographic print stations, rotary photopolymer embossing, rotary magnetic die cutting, and it’s all controlled at this console by one operator in one pass.”
Award Winning Collaboration
Daly says of Pollard that his approach with customers is first-class. “He doesn’t try to sell people; he tries to offer solutions. If they need something tomorrow, we’ll bend over backwards to make that happen.”
Their sense of urgency, their wide breadth of capabilities, and the care taken to help customers achieve their vision is a winning formula for ASL Print FX. “We print labels for companies of all sizes. So, if you’re printing 100 cases of wine labels versus several million, we have the tools in our toolbox to support all levels of growth. We won a First Place Award at TLMI for a label called ‘15 Minutes of Fame’ for Anarchist Wine Company. The wine label was designed by a San Francisco designer…her name is Jenny Doll…and absolutely on the cutting edge of design. And that’s how you win awards through a partnership of collaboration, of understanding the technology, and delivering on the brand goal,” says Pollard.
Daly adds, “So, all of the labels that are best of show in all of these different countries’ associations meet and then they decide who was the best of the best. This gentleman who I respect a lot…I got a phone call, I picked it up, and all I heard was ‘Now that’s impressive’. We win a lot of awards. We’re not alone. There’s a lot of our competitors that win a bunch of awards, but we hold our own…that’s for sure.”
“The Domino Difference is the level of support we receive, bar none.”
We asked ASL Print FX, ‘What’s next? What does the future hold?’ Pollard says, “We view Domino technology as our future. And the partnership that we have has been incredible. The Domino Difference is the level of support we receive, bar none. Tom Grencik and his team are the best in the business, and they always take the time to teach our operators more about the equipment so that we’re self-sufficient. It’s a win-win proposition.”
Daly adds, “Our future for us now is we’re buying another Domino for Canada, investing in that future now will pay off dividends. Every year, every month I see us growing more and more, and Domino digital technology is getting us closer to a platform where we’re starting to remove variables…that’s the win. I’d like to thank Domino for their partnership with a great piece of equipment that we’re enjoying working with. I truly, truly enjoyed this experience and Domino keep up the good work and we’ll continue to purchase.”
As we’re wrapping up our visit, Pollard smiles and says, “From all of us at ASL Print FX, thanks Domino.”
Domino is a leading manufacturer and distributor of digital printing and product identification solutions. Celebrating its 43rd year in business, Domino is a global organization with world headquarters in the UK, and North America headquarters in Gurnee, IL. Domino has 25 subsidiaries, representation in over 120 countries, and over 2,900 employees worldwide. For more information on Domino digital printing, please visit dominodigitalprinting.com
