About Us

Our company was started by my grandfather, Howard Deming in 1901 as a small job printer called the Sterling Press. One day he came home to find his wife, Pearl, very upset because the ink stamp the laundry used (no one had in-home washers and dryers back then) to identify their customer's clothes had run on her corset cover, which was a garment worn over the corset but under the very sheer blouses which were then fashionable. Howard thought about the problem and, as he had some cotton tape back in his print shop, he tried printing on it so it could be used to identify people's clothing when they brought them to the commercial laundry. The printed name tape was born!

Since that time, Sterling has produced millions of clothing labels of all types: logo labels, care & content labels and, of course, name labels for nursing home residents, kids going to summer camp or to boarding school, residents of religious organizations and lots of other people who need to mark their belongings.

Over the years, our business has shifted more and more to commercial labels for everything from baby clothes to dog collars and even alpaca halters. We look forward to designing and making labels for YOUR next project.