Foil Stamping - Your eco-friendly option
Fig. 1 Octogram’s Foil Stamping
An Old Tradition, A Modern Pursuit
In the 1990s, it is popular to receive wedding invitation cards from the bride and bridegroom with letters printed with gold foil. The gold imprint on red or white wedding cards gave it a classy look back in those days and you do still see some wedding cards like these today.
Like what the ancient proverb says, “Old is gold”. There is indeed truth to it. These wedding cards may be a classic version of our invitation cards today yet the method and choice of using foil stamping as a finishing to print isn’t. Foil stamping was and still is a very much popular choice in printmaking.
Why Foil Stamping?
In today’s world, packaging plays a significant role in attracting consumer attention while at the same time establishing a brand’s image. A good branding & packaging can in turn generate recurring clients. Businesses are thinking of effective ways to create packaging that could capture the hearts of people. Just like how people would queue long hours for limited edition Hello Kitty toys at McDonald’s back in 2013, the recent Korean drama, ‘Crash Landing on You’ on Netflix left fans chasing after it all owing to the ripple effect of branding and packaging. When it comes to print marketing, the type of material chosen, the kind of finishing can create an impact towards its consumers. In fact, packaging is often the last of a consumer chain to reach the heart of a client.
Fashion & Retail brand, Tiffany & Co. uses black foil stamping on her boxes instead of the usual ink printing to give it a more luxurious feel in her packaging (Pentagram). Ralph & Russo, a European high fashion haute couture adopts rose gold foil stamp in their packaging to suits its brand image.
Likewise, with the pursuit of sustainable development, foil stamping is definitely a more sought-after option (As mentioned in our Previous Post on Sustainable Print & Packaging). Prints that adopt foil stamping are recyclable.
What are the choices of Foil Stamping and how to use?
Foil stamping comes in 2 types: Hot & Cold Foil Stamping.
Hot foil stamping is a printing process that involves the use of heat to imprint the metal foil onto the paper substrate by means of a metal die. On the other hand, cold foil stamping creates the metal foil effect by means of a UV adhesive.
Both hot and cold foil stamping comes in a variety of colours; red, gold, rose gold, silver, bronze, black and many more.
Fig 2. Image source taken from Bee Printing UK