The great thing about print is, it can result in items that can serve as something useful. A few examples, such as a folder (to hold useful documents), (desk)calendar, stationery as a quick way to pass on your details. It is great to hold a beautiful finished off brochure with high-quality photos in your hands. Or a special invitation that someone can open and keep as a reminder of an event. Excellent reasons to spice up the design even more.
Print finishing is a commercial and/or personal value-added process that takes place after printing. In this article, I will show a few examples of print finishes that is sometimes overlooked as an option when designing for print.
Ultra Violet (UV) Varnish
UV varnish is available in high gloss or matt and can be applied overall the design. Spot UV is when the varnish is applied to a selected area of a printed image to highlight or emphasise. When Spot UV is used with matt lamination, it produces a very effective contrast that highlights pictures or text and therefore enhance the product. In the following examples gloss Spot UV is being used.
Example 1: Spot UV over a printed shape
Printhouse Corporation has created a calendar for 2010 in collaboration with jelly (specialises in illustration and animation). jelly organised the stunning illustrations for the cover of the calendar and each month. The whole calendar is matt laminated and it makes the Spot UV stand out more on the title of each month. To make things a bit more interesting, I added Spot UV to a few elements on each illustration. It adds texture to the overall look and feel.
Example 2: Use Spot UV to create a graphic/image over a printed area
In this example, Alex at Printhouse designed a 10-year anniversary box for Thames Clippers. The box contains card with memorable imagery and information of the company. The outside of the box is printed with a solid blue colour, one of their corporate colours. The whole box is finished off with a matt laminate. A decorative graphic (of their boat in the sea) is created with Spot UV only. The Spot UV has a nice effect on a dark colour with the matt laminate to enhance the effect. Silver Foil Blocking is used for their custom designed 10 Year Anniversary logo.
Foil Blocking
Most of the time Foil Blocking is placed on stationery and promotional materials, for example, brochures. Foil Blocking adds an impression of quality that can be of great benefit to companies in today’s competitive market. There is a huge range of colours and textures available. The most popular are gold and silver. In the following examples, I show a few colours used for Foil Blocking.
Gold Foil
In this design gold Foil Blocking is used on the text in combination with Embossing (discussed later in this post). The whole card is finished of with a gloss laminate.
Silver Foil
This is a design I have done for Peligoni Club in Zakynthos, Greece. The club is friendly for young adults, families and friends. But at the same time stylish and chic. They also offer accommodation that is hand-picked for its quality, location, value and flexibility. They have a very wide selection of properties, from simple studio rooms, through to large luxury villas. To represent this image I have used a lot of white in contrast with bright summer coloured images. The silver Foil Blocking on the cover and pocket of the folder add the necessary detail to complete the style.
Bronze Foil
This is a design I have done for Mae Ping Thai Restaurant. On the cover, I have used bronze Foil Blocking in combination with Spot UV over the fish graphic. A gold spot colour forms the pattern on the inside panel folding to the left underneath the cover.
Magenta Foil
chemistry use an uncoated, pre-pigmented stock for the cover and finished off with the logo in magenta Foil Blocking.
Embossing and Debossing
Embossing is where an image is pressed into the material so that the image raises from the surface. With debossing material around the die impression is raised rather than raising the design area itself. An uncoated stock usually gives the best effect.
Embossing Example
In this example, Aftershock used an uncoated pre-pigmented stock to Emboss a pattern on the cover for their autumn/winter 2009 catalogue. The embossing is combined with gold Foil Blocking for the text.
Debossing Example
Another example where pre-pigmented uncoated stock is used for the cover. jelly use Debossing for the text in the logo combined with Spot UV and magenta Foil Blocking for the icon.
You might be interested in playing around with Print Finishes yourself. In my next post, to follow soon, I will explain how is a good way to set up Print Finishes in an Adobe® InDesign® file.
Contact us about your print finishing design
The thing about getting Print Finishing right is that it benefits from being carefully planned right up front. In fact, in many of the examples seen above, the only option is to plan the finishing from the outset.
Here at PrintHouse we have years of experience in designing for print finishing and we’d be delighted to share it with you.
Don’t hesitate to get in contact by giving us a call on 020 8963 0123 or by using the form below.
