Registration for trade work and the pitfalls for foilers.

Colour bar misalignment, actually supplied like this

Cling wrap affecting gripper and side lay and unstable stacking of one pallet on another

Print Production

Hot Foil stamping and embossing are carried out after printing.  So lets take a typical scenario.

A four colour job is printed onto an uncoated offset sheet 300 gsm. A large solid is printed over most of the sheet.  The sheet is fed into the press and pushed or pulled to the side lay where the grippers grab the sheet and take it through the press. Four colours or more are then laid down in perfect registration with each other and the sheet is delivered at the other end.

When the stack is full the pile is removed and set aside for drying and later finishing.

This printed material then finds its way to the trade foil stamper probably two, maybe more, days later.

The trade foiler  unwraps the print and loads the sheet into the foil stamping press hoping to use the same gripper and side lay and then register the foiled image with the printing.

In fact there are registration issues and the foil does not register with the print. Here are the possible reasons why:

1  The gripper and side lays are not marked on the sheet so the foiler has to call the printing company.

2  The printing is moving on the sheet. The colours register together but the image is changing position on the sheet. The side lay may not be working and the sheet maybe bouncing out of the grippers.  This is obvious by the colour bars or side lay marks not falling in a straight line down the sheet on delivery.

3  An uncoated sheet with a large ink solid will expand or contract as it dries or with changes in atmospheric humidity.

4  The stock was cut down but the gripper was not pushed up against the back stop or the pile was not jogged up resulting in uneven cuts

5  The clamp on the guillotine was too light resulting in an angled cut so the registration comes in and out with each batch cut.

6  The pallet was not secured with straps or protected with cling wrap and the straps bite into the stock on the gripper and side lay.

7  Cling wrap only was used and wrapped tightly causing the sheet edges to bend up or down making pick up and feed on the foiling press difficult.

Studio

8  The image for the foil has not been “trapped” in the studio so there is no choke meaning the registration is hairline and a slight movement will expose white areas or the underlying colour.

9 The foiled image was “reversed out” of the background leaving a very tight area on which to place the foiled image. Better to let the foiling fall on top and set the image to “overprint” , then if there is a slight movement in the sheet it will never be noticeable.

Please heed these points for the trade foiler

Infographics is the leading hot foil stamping and embossing specialist in Wales offering

a trade service to other printers from A5 to B2 sheet size.

Brand Strength

Many multinational companies use hot foil stamping techniques to enhance their brand strength and credibility from L’oreal to Lacoste and Twinings tea to whisky companies. This process is also referred to as gold stamping, foil printing, hot foil, foil blocking and foil embossing, however, the impact and impression is always the same: upmarket conferring brand strength and credibility.

Attracting Attention

Hot foil printing and embossing elevate the printed stationery to attract the customer’s attention ahead of other competing brands and products. It can therefore deliver the message ahead of the competition. Visually it is very striking.

Embossing

is also a very useful subtle technique that brings life to the page making images “leap” of the surface. Also known as print embossing and blind embossing when the embossing stands alone on the cover.

Infographics has produced a small guideline booklet explaining how to design images for success and maximum impact and avoid presentations where embossing does not have the impact required.

Security Foiling

The effect of hot foil stamping, foil printing and embossing, is taken many steps further when the two processes are combined and light diffraction and refraction foils are introduced in combination with “micro etched” images. These effects are ideal to improve the security aspects of printed documents in areas such as sales vouchers and award certificates and also to authenticate sold products.

Infographics can offer foil solutions for security foiling in an economical way.

Areas of Application

The fields of application are many and growing from business forms such as letterheads, compliment slips and superior quality stationery, to folders and annual report and account covers. The packaging industry has been taking advantage of foil printing and embossing for many years attracting attention on store shelves and increasingly magazine covers for special additions. Book jacket covers almost always use these techniques to stand out on the book shelves. In a market place where the customers attention span is shortening, hot foil stamping and embossing is becoming increasingly important to attract attention first and for this reason our positioning statement is

Attracting Customers

Infographics hot foil stamping and embossing.

“Infographics hot foil” is part of the “creative graphical communication” approach to everything we do

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know that the vouchers and wallets arrived today and they look amazing. Thank you so much for your fantastic printing, foil blocking and service.

Thanks again.

Anna Burke
Graphic Designer and Marketing Assistant
Clogau Gold of Wales Ltd

Recently, Infographics produced some very upmarket vouchers for Clogau Gold. The finished artwork was supplied and Infographics printed, gold foil blocked and cut and creased the voucher and voucher holders. Each voucher had its own unique reference number which Infographics over printed with its personalisation software. A very well presented quality gift for buyers of fine gold designs from a quality goldsmith.

We have produced many thousands of vouchers both in digital print and traditional ink from artwork supplied and from our own design studio. If you are a graphic designer please take advantage of our facilities to produce your vouchers.

Vouchers can represent money in a different form and their security is very important. To increase the security aspect Infographics uses a variety of foils and techniques that make couterfeit extremely difficult. See this website.

Please have a look at this short video to see how hotfoil stamping and embossing work and the information we need in order to supply an accurate quote

Click on the logo below

Congratulations to Westdale Printing becoming consumer magazine printer of the year 2011. Three titles submitted were hot foil stamped by Infographics and we are very proud to be associated with the winning titles. Westdale are very demanding and do not compromise on print and finishing quality. Thank you for your faith in our production quality and advice. This is reward for the very high standards we are constantly striving for. Infographics is building a strong reputation as experts in the field of Foil Stamping and Embossing and has produced a short guide to successful paper and card embossing.

Please enter your details and company name on the contacts page asking for our sample pack.

We all know of the benefits of hot foil blocking and foil stamping when trying to attract customers but Jewellers can really make this work for them.

A new customer VanLeles Diamonds based in the heart of London, found our website and liked what they saw. We used some very upmarket conqueror paper and silver foil stamped their logo onto letterheads compliment slips and DL envelope flaps.

The result is a very upmarket presentation for a quality diamond company and the stationery more than justifies the cost in terms of prestige and reputation that is helping to attract more business

Well done Vania and thank you for your business.

Steve Jobs on this magazine has been silver foil stamped. Can you celebrate a life and apple with anything less?      Thanks

The other day an unmarked van arrived at Infographics and dropped off a pallet of printing. On it was a purchase order and a cd of the artwork. This was quickly processed ready for foil blocking. However, the quantity was missing and also the foil colour so we had to call the customer. The foil was a non standard foil which had to be ordered in, taking a further two days.

A day later the same customer called to ask when the job would be ready and we said three days. The customer was not happy even when I explained that other customers had already booked their work in, sent the artwork and purchase order in advance, showing the full information and the dies were waiting for their work to arrive.

Please download on our trade page time management and production guidelines for a smoother turnaround.

Sometimes things don’t run to plan or go smoothly.

We had an important deadline for an extremely prestigious international customer. Programme covers were being hot foil stamped and under normal circumstances it should have run smoothly. Our print customers had delivered the 2500 covers late Friday and we planned for Seamus to come in on the Sunday to get the job finished for later assembling on the Monday then off to the airport and in New York for the Wednesday. Failure to do so could have literally cost the customer millions in lost revenue as the cover was for an auction list of valuable artifacts and paintings.

The job was set up on Sunday morning and ready to run when Seamus managed to damage the die, a very large expensive copper die. Seamus dutifully informed the printing company’s production manager who wanted to be kept up to date. This guy was fantastic and remained calm and the two slowly drew up a plan to get a new die made for late on the Monday. The die makers were also fantastic and made a copy and had it couriered by motorbike to us for 5 pm Monday.

Once again Seamus set up the job and started to run the job when the foiling machine suddenly stopped and no amount of knob turning and button pushing could get it going again. It was now 9pm and Seamus looked up to the heavens and shouted you “m….r f….r.  Seamus got on the phone to the Infographics hotfoil production manager who was more familiar with the machine. He offered to come down and help to get it going which was absolutely fantastic, however, he suggested a solution which worked.

The job began to run steadily but Seamus wanted to run the press slowly to check the quality and keep control. The clock kept on ticking all the way through to 7.30 am when the covers were picked up. The gathering, fold stitch and trim didn’t run as smoothly as you would expect but somehow the job was placed on a plane and arrived in New York in time to sell those paintings and artifacts. This was the first time Seamus had worked a 24 hour solid day and hoped he wouldn’t have to do it again. He was very impressed with the team around him from colleagues to suppliers and production managers who didn’t flap but worked out a way to get the job delivered on time.

End customers often do not realise the hard work and sacrifices that are often made in this industry and it is so important that we all try and work together. We don’t always win but we can succeed most of the time with communication and trying to understand each others roles. Download the hot foil production guidelines and time management from the trade page to make sure that Seamus always gets a good night sleep