Metalized foil — Generally referred simply as foil, metalized foil is the most commonly used material in foil stamping. This material produces a shiny metallic finish and is available in a variety of colors, with silver and gold foil stamping being the most popular. Pigment foil — Pigment foils are characterized by their non-metallic finish. They are available in almost any color, with matte or gloss surface textures.
Pigment foils are used on both papers and plastics. Pearl foil — These foils are mainly used for adding a lustrous, pearlescent shine to a design. Pearl foils can be either transparent or translucent and are commonly used on wedding invitations and greeting cards. Effects foil — Effects foils are essentially foils with multiple colored patterns and tones. Popular options include light diffractions, stripes, sparkles, and holographic patterns.
Holographic foil — These foils typically produce 3D or rainbow-colored patterns, and are mainly used for their aesthetic appeal. Credit cards, ID cards, and security seals are a few of the most common applications for holographic foils. Scratch-off foil — As their name implies, scratch-off foils are designed to be easily removed via scratching. They do not permanently adhere to a printed surface, making them ideal for temporarily concealing sensitive information.
These foils are commonly found on lottery tickets and phone cards. These 3 printing techniques have different ways of transferring metallic elements, which affect the amount of shine and texture. Foil printing has evolved from a slow manufacturing process to the latest digital equipment that is capable of fast foil printing with more customisation options than ever before.
Let's take a look at the 3 different foil printing techniques, how they work and why they were invented. Foil printing was inspired by gold book covers from the middle ages. This is when monks handcrafted sacred texts and debossed the leather covers, before adding gold leaf.
They were highly treasured and protected because books were scarce. In fact, during these times, most people were illiterate, and books rarely had a cover. By , most books had a book cover and gold embellishments and illustrations became more common. In the 20 th century hot stamping was invented using metallic paper. This involves a hot die that is used as a foil machine to stamp it into card. A metal stamping plate needs to be manufactured for each design. This means if a company wants to print business cards for its employees, there is a setup charge for each individual employee name.
With this technique, you can see the rough contours of the paper, so the light does not reflect as much as the other methods below. This also means that the foiled areas can be inconsistent, sometimes it can look patchy when the colour doesn't get into the grooves in the paper. This method was invented to eliminate the need for the costly metal stamp making process.
Instead, this process simply sticks the foil onto card or paper. This also works on thinner materials because it does not need to emboss the surface area. It is sometimes claimed to be more environmentally friendly because there is no heat and no need to manufacture plates for each design. However, it still uses similar materials with the addition of glue. Digital foiling is a faster process where the artwork is sent from a computer to the printer where it is printed in layers.
In the case of my print brokering client, the books are always adorned with gold foil. My client could have chosen silver foil as an alternative. However, increasingly, manufacturers of foil stamping materials have been offering black, pearlescent, and even clear foils for foil stamping effects. In fact, you may even choose these new foils for other uses than foil stamping case-bound books. For instance, you may choose a black press sheet for an elegant invitation to a party, and then wonder how to print on the paper to ensure that the ink will be readable.
Since it won't the short answer unless you employ screen printing instead of offset printing technology, you may choose the alternative of foil stamping the text for the invitation.
It would be the same process as for the case-bound book. You would have the printer create a die for the entire text block. Then he would apply heat and pressure on a foil stamping press, forcing the metal die to cut through the foil and deposit it in this case on the black paper of the invitation. The two types of offset presses you might use to print the books, brochures, posters, etc.
The difference has to do with the format of the paper used in the printing process. To feed a sheetfed press, you would load the press with a stack of individual sheets.
Or, your printer may trim down a larger sheet a parent sheet to fit his press. In contrast, a web-fed offset press uses rolls of paper which are usually cheaper for the paper mill to produce than cut sheets since they have not yet been trimmed to their final size. In the majority of cases a printer can order a particular paper stock a particular weight, paper surface, and color in either rolls or sheets, depending on the press he plans to use.
When loaded on a large web press, a roll of printing paper provides a continuous stream of paper, which flows through the inking units of the press at a much faster pace than individual sheets travel through a sheetfed press.
The ink units deposit offset ink on the plates, as with a sheetfed press, and the plates transfer the ink to the press blankets and from there onto the paper. Finally, cutting and folding equipment folds the web of paper into signatures or cuts the ribbon of paper into flat sheets, which may then be further processed.
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