Elegant Hot Stamp Foil Printing
Elegant Hot Stamp Foil Printing
As we come out of COVID-19 every consumer product will be looking to grow their impact. Every bottle of beer, wine, spirits and soda will be vying for new customer eyes. Shopping will be a new beginning and old brand loyalties will largely be forgotten. Getting out of the gate strong, making a huge impact on your ‘new’ customers right away, can be a game changer for many brands. Think of this restart after COVID-19 as a blank slate – a true rebirth of physical products in the marketplace. All the old loyalties and prejudices are gone – everyone is shopping in your category for the first time.
Nothing improves your image more than hot stamp foil printing on your label. Foil pops off the shelf. The lighting in a retail shelf or cold case interacts with the label in a way that catches the consumer. You have read many scientific studies about how consumer eyes track around a shelf – you have milliseconds to grab customer attention. Using elegant hot stamp foil on your label gives you that edge – the slight margin you need to capture new eyeballs and new customers. Don’t waste this opportunity to grab your consumer for the first time.
The Machine
Although we have been hot stamp foil printing for years, we upgraded our machine a few years ago to a full servo-driven, state of the art press. See the machine in action on our YouTube channel. Basically, the process is the same as it 
has always been – you heat a magnesium, copper, or brass plate up to 220 degrees and smash the foil onto the label with tremendous force. The process is the same, but this press is much more precise. These are the key features explained in the video:
- Large image area – 9″ x 9″ image area allows us to run very large labels, or run many at a time for better economy.
- Stable steel frame to transfer needed force with precision.
- Servo driven register for exacting foil placement.
- Modern electronics for reliable production into the future.
- Backed by a world wide company and a US-based service technician.
For all these reasons, the new machine is a fantastic addition to our lineup. We are thrilled to have this technology in house – staffed by our own people – so we can always meet your needs for hot stamp foil label printing. When you need an edge in the market after COVID-19, we are here to help.
Design Considerations
Because this is a bit of a crude printing technology, the design must be appropriate. Fade screens, photos, and extreme detail is not possible with hot stamp foil printing. The printing plate seen in this image is etched or engraved (depending on the metal) and the fine details are not possible. Besides the plate detail, the physical process of smashing foil into paper is not as elegant as our other printing press options. Typically bold logos, sans serif type, and borders are good candidates for hot stamp foil printing. If you have a design in mind, please send it to us for review. We can make suggestions to help maximize the impact of your foil elements without wasting money on areas that won’t print well. Fine lines – especially parallel lines together – can be very difficult. The result can be a crude, blocky appearance that defeats the effect you are trying to create. Send us your file for review – we can help get the foil in the right places for maximum impact.
Call Us Today – We have 35 YEARS of Hot Stamp Foil Printing!
We are experts in this area. For nearly 35 years we have been industry leaders in elegant hot stamp foil printing. Other label printers send jobs to us! We are respected in this area because of our knowlege, experience, and results. This COVID-19 crisis has been brutal on many of our customers. We are here for you and want to see you rise from this with a better business than ever. Elegant Hot Stamp foil printing can make a difference in your recovery. Call us today. We can help!
just feels different than most labels – you know you are drinking something special. In this case, the front label on the bottle is a deeply embossed placard that complements this label very well. Together, they make a premium package for your product.
Some customers are fascinated with the technology behind their labels, and some really just want the results. If you like knowing how we get your labels to pop off the shelf, this is the paragraph for you. One of the key components of high quality label printing is the delivery of ink and coating to the label stock. The ink (or in this case, coating) is dispensed by a very expensive, finely engraved roller with microscopic ‘cups’ that carry and release coating onto the printing plate. These rollers have various line screens – numbers of cavities per linear inch. As the number of cells is increased, the volume of ink dispensed is reduced. In this case, we used a very coarse, high volume roller to deliver a very thick coating of varnish to the label surface. The textured label varnish is also enhanced with a fine grain additive – almost like putting sand into the label coating. Together with the proper volume, pressure, and press speed, this label ends up with a very distinctive tactile feel.
Once we get back to some form of ‘new normal’ we will be ready to expand and serve even more people. This time – the crisis lock down – won’t last forever. It will end. The way we come out of this to survive and thrive will depend on HOW we use this time. Yes, the uncertainty makes it very difficult to be positive, but the time will pass. Spring follows winter, every year. There is a natural order to things, and we are using our time wisely.
We remain thankful for all our amazing, resilient customers. 
A ‘Choke’ is a contraction or reduction of size of an element. In this example, a full color image is surrounded by a black border. They are designed to fit adjacent to each other with no overlap. However, on a press, holding that perfect alignment isn’t possible, which can result in a white line between the elements, like this (the ‘before’ image). In order to fix this, we ‘choked’ the outside black border into the color image in the center. This addition of a very, very small stroke around the border ensures that even with a bit of movement, there is never a white line showing. We can spot this problem in the graphics phase when plates are being made to avoid a white line like this. We know trapping.
for cost and simplicity, we chose to choke the outside border into the image. The other very common use of a ‘spread’ is to compensate for the expansion of ink as it is transferred from the printing plate to the label stock. Without the sread, small reverse type like this would fill in. Again, this image on the right is a ‘before’ picture of what would happen without proper trapping. By opening up those white letters, we compensate for the natural filling in. Trapping is critical to getting you high quality labels, and we know trapping!
