"We've always tried to work on that basis - to turn on a dime," he says, who has owned the company along with his wife Edna since 1986. "I think Canadian companies have always thought that we could turn things around quicker than in the U.S., where they want big volumes, and to sit on a chaiselongue at the end of the press and let it run."

Coming out of the litho side of printing, Robinson says he has always targeted the same level of quality. "lf the litho boys can turn out 150 line screen, why can't we in flexo? "After some investigation, Artcraft Label fingerprinted its 6-colour Webtron press and started printing in process colours at 150 line screen. One of the first jobs involved taking over a peanut butter label job for Canada Packers, which was originally done lithio. This caused a stir in the flexo community, garnering attention as far as Nestlé in Switzerland. "We showed them the label; they looked at it and said, 'You´re running this litho'. We said, 'No, this is run flexography on polymer plates,' and he couldn't believe it. "Even today, Artcraft continues to earn kudos, with five recent wins in the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen competition, going against litho jobs.

Unlike his competitors, Robinson also felt strongly about creating an in-house art department. “The heart of our business is our presses: we've got to feed them. As much as (prepress houses) want to say 'I'd love to turn it over by tomorrow for you,' it turns out to be the next day. We felt that we had to keep the heartbeat going, we had to bring it in-house, so we did it many years ago. We learned how to start and turn around plates quicker and I think now that we're going digital with computer to plate, we have cut that even further." Indeed, with its new digital Cosmolight water-wash system, Artcraft Label is now able to go from digital file to finished plate in as little as an hour whereas the old analogue solvent system took more than four hours.

Artcraft has also taken a strong lead in the education of its employees as well as being open to suggestions from them on how to push the envelope. One of its hires, Remy Pravato, was a graduate from Gordon Graydon's unique high school flexo program and now runs Artcraft's new Nilpeter FB-3300 press.

Robinson says he is always open to new ideas and technologies on the marketplace. Last year Mitch Whatford, Artcraft's manager of research and development, was given a valuable experience with a trip to Labelexpo Europe to explore the technology coming online on the other side of the pond. It was there he got to know the Cosmolight system, not even yet available to the North American market. "The walls have come down in the printing industry," says Whatford. "For us to compete in the market now, we have to have the quality. The customers we have are allowing us to bid on other projects whereas before it was very narrow."

"We've been on the edge of what flexo can do," adds Robinson. "But we push it a little more, see if we can take it a little further and I think it's still the fastest growing part of the print industry."