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Printing Industry Exchange (printindustry.com) is pleased to have Steven Waxman writing and managing the Printing Industry Blog. As a printing consultant, Steven teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.

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Commercial Printing: Sappi Paper Book Revisited

I continued perusing the Sappi Standard #5, and I saw some other custom printing and finishing options I wanted to share with you. This print book is just too good to summarize in one PIE Blog posting.

Metallic Foils

On one page of this print book, the Sappi paper company designer has included a robot composed primarily of contrasting metallic foils that seem to move and blink as you shift the paper. Small portions of the robot were created with process ink for contrast, but the majority of the design plays solid metallics against metallics composed of reflective dots and holographic foils.

Such an effect can be accomplished by your commercial printing supplier using custom metal dies to cut through the foil material, and then heat and pressure to affix the foil to the substrate. The printer can do one or multiple passes to lay down any number of different foils. If the design includes any offset custom printing work, this would be done on a separate pass using different press equipment.

Metallic foil provides a striking effect, but you might also consider colored pearlescent foils, white foil, patterned foil, or even transparent foil. Some metallic foil effects don’t even require actual metallic film. The Sappi Standard #5 describes liquid foil, which is actually a UV coating. It looks and behaves like an ink, so it can be added inline on an offset press, but once it has dried, it gives the impression of a metal foil. Sappi notes that this product goes by the following names: Mirafoil, Liquid Foil, and Super Silver.

In addition, you might even want to apply foil to a press sheet and then emboss the area to make it really stand out.

Embossing

Embossing raises an image off the page, and debossing lowers the image below the surface of the paper. The Standard #5 includes a number of embossed effects, including a rubberized spy coat (covered in soft-touch UV coating) with various spy tools hidden in the coat, such as listening devices, a magnifying glass, and a small motorcycle. All of these are slightly raised off the page using blind embossing (a process using a metal die, heat, and pressure, but no separate ink or foil). In these cases, the raised image itself creates the design under the already printed image of the coat.

As a designer, you might want to go one step further and create a sculpted emboss. This process still uses a metal die, but it includes more nuances in the multiple levels of the die, creating a more sculptural, carved look.

Commercial printing suppliers use various metals for these dies. For shorter runs with less complexity in the dies, copper and magnesium are appropriate, but for complex, multilevel dies or long press runs, brass is a better choice, since it is a more durable metal.

Flocking

The Sappi Standard #5 also includes samples of a technique called “flocking,” which involves applying an adhesive to a portion of a press sheet , and then adding small particles of a natural or synthetic substance to the adhesive area. Sappi created a white Abominable Snowman on a bright white press sheet to demonstrate this technique. The artist gave the image a white, raised, fur-like coating using flocking material. Once the flocking material had been added to the adhesive surface, the custom printing vendor vacuumed away the flocking particles that were not on the adhesive image area, thus creating the image of the Abominable Snowman. On a separate pass, the printer had already defined the face and hands of the creature using 4-color process offset lithography.

Reticulated Varnish

This is an effect that appears to have originated as a mistake. When the viscosity of a UV coating is increased past a certain point, it can no longer be spread evenly on a press sheet. So the coating beads up a bit, creating a stippled, or granular, appearance.

On the page opposite the Abominable Snowman, The Standard #5 has included a barely visible image of Sasquatch using reticulated varnish. The reticulated varnish effect allows for a subtle contrast between the background foliage and the body of the creature. Reticulated varnish is not quite as even as sandpaper UV coating, and it has a larger, more visible patterning. Therefore, it appears to be a special effect aimed more at the visual rather than the tactile senses.

These Books Are Great Sources for Ideas

As noted before, it behooves you to collect books of sample printing techniques. Not only will they teach you how these effects can be achieved by your commercial printing shop, but they will give you fresh ideas for your graphic design. In addition, you can always show the effects to your custom printing supplier to help you articulate the exact “look” you want to achieve.

2 Responses to “Commercial Printing: Sappi Paper Book Revisited”

  1. cutting dies says:

    I like the valuable information you provide in your articles. I’ll bookmark your blog. Good luck!

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