Custom Printing: Gloss UV vs. Clear Foil Stamping

My fiancee brought home an intriguing circus print book from a thrift store yesterday. In addition to being all in French, which adds an air of romance to the already beautiful images of horses and costume-clad performers, the book includes the handwritten signatures of a number of the actors in black marker, on their individual pages. The 8” x 10” format, saddle-stitched book also has a striking front and back cover treatment: a gloss coating on the horse and circus name (on the front cover) and two silhouettes of acrobats on the back cover, also gloss coated.

Determining How the Designer Created the Gloss Effect

The gloss coating has an almost mirror-like brilliance, and the remaining background of the front and back covers has a more muted, satin-like coating for contrast.

I wasn’t exactly sure how the effect had been achieved, so I considered the possibilities:

1. 1. The gloss coating was too shiny to be varnish or aqueous coating. It also had a bit of a raised feel.

 

1. 1. The gloss could have been a clear foil stamping, but I knew this would have been an expensive way to approach this design problem, since a die would have been required for the foil stamping process.

 

1. I knew that flooding a background with a dull or satin UV coating and then highlighting certain elements within the design with gloss UV coating was currently in vogue, and that it would have produced just this kind of effect at a lower cost than clear foil stamping (because no die would have been required).

Under the circumstances I made an educated guess that the UV option was the likely technology in use. I also checked online for images of gloss UV coating paired with satin UV, and the photos confirmed my assumption.

Other Things I Learned

I also learned some other things in my review of the online imagery as well as the descriptions of the process:

1. 1. Clear foil stamping seems to be used more for logos and words on a dark, uncoated but textured substrate. For instance, a lot of the clear foil stamped products were custom pocket folder covers or invitations with a few words on a blue or black linen sheet. The effect was similar to the UV gloss coating, but the clear foil stamping technique seemed to be used less as a coating (over imagery) and more as a design element in and of itself.

 

1. 1. The darker and more subdued the background, the more the gloss UV stood out. The gloss UV type on a satin UV background didn’t really need any other imagery. On it’s own, it was quite dramatic. In fact, some of the photos I found online were of business cards and postcards with just gloss type on a muted background. (Presumably, though, the fact that UV coating needs no die made the process cheaper and less time consuming than the clear foil stamping option.)

 

1. 1. I already knew this, but I also found descriptions of how UV light instantly cures the coating, allowing follow-up steps to be performed immediately, and how this process consumes less energy since it uses light rather than heat to solidify the liquid coating material.

 

1. 1. I learned that foil stamping (including clear foil stamping) works best on thicker paper stocks. This probably accounts for the use of clear foil stamping for invitations on a thicker felt paper substrate. One article I read noted that coated papers are seldom foil stamped since the coating traps gases and may cause bubbles to appear under the clear foil. For this reason, I felt even more certain that the circus print book my fiancee had brought home was created with a gloss UV coating and a satin UV coating rather than clear foil stamping. After all, the paper stock used throughout the booklet was coated.

 

1. 1. Another article I read, by a printer, noted the two best uses for gloss UV. The first is for highlighting imagery (like the gloss coating used on the front-cover booklet title and horse, as well as the silhouettes of acrobats on the back cover). The second is for creating the text or image itself, without any other artwork, since the glossy words can be read when the light hits the design (because of the contrast with the dull background).

 

1. 1. The article noted that such a UV coating is primarily added for its aesthetic properties and not for protection (as might be the goal of adding an overall flood varnish, aqueous coating, laminate, or UV coating).

 

1. 1. Gloss UV seems to be appropriate for a wider range of paper stocks than clear foil stamping: from lighter 100# text stock to thick card stocks.

 

1. And UV coating seems to be safe for the environment, emitting no VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and containing no solvents.

What You Can Learn

1. 1. You have a lot of options. In fact, you can even create similar printed products using different technologies (such as clear foil stamping and spot gloss UV coating).

 

1. 1. However, some of these techniques take longer than others (the time needed to make a metal die, for instance) and are therefore more expensive.

 

1. If you like a particular effect, ask your commercial printing supplier or a paper merchant for printed samples. Then ask how they were created. There’s no better way to learn—or communicate your goals to your printer—than with a printed sample.