Design Chemical - Web Design, Printing, Packaging & SEO» Packaging

Printing Gold Colour

Jaffrey — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:13:28 +0000

Recently I experienced the agony of trying to get the colour gold printed on a series of products that I designed and this is what I discovered.

On our first try using digital print, the resulting colour was a greenish brown colour. Nowhere close to Gold

On our second try using offset print, the resulting colour was still a greenish brown, a military camo colour.

On the third try, instead of using CMYK, we dropped the K and print using CMY instead using offset printing. The resulting colour is totally different from the first and second try, this time it is a brown.

In conclusion, the colour Gold cannot be reproduced by both digital and offset printing. The only way to get the colour Gold accurately is to print using Pantone Gold Ink, which was confirmed by our client calling Pantone themselves, and the resulting colour is a shiny Gold. So whenever you come across the colour Gold for future projects, save yourself time and stress, print using Pantone colour. It is the only way to get the job done right.

Printing with Art Paper or Woodfree Paper

Jaffrey — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:10:16 +0000

When printing is important to know which paper type to use and when.

There are two main types of paper for printing – each one has it’s own specific use.

Printing With Art Paper

Art paper has a hard, smooth surface on one or both sides, which created by a coat of fine clay compound. Art paper is commonly used for printing business cards, brochures, catalogues, posters etc. It comes in a range of different paper weight for different thickness and strength. It is not possible to write on art paper.

Printing With Woodfree Paper

Woodfree paper is a printing and writing paper which contains little or no mechanical woodpulp. It is commonly used for printing letterheads, notebooks, notepads and other similar type items, which are used for writing or standard printing.

Woodfree paper comes in 80 – 100gm thickness.

Based on your printing requirements, this should help guide you to know what type of paper to ask for in your next printing project.

Silver Foil Press Labels

Jaffrey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:52:42 +0000

A leading Italian crocodile skin bag designer approached us to design and produce crocodile skin labels with the Italian designer’s branding imprinted onto the crocodile skin. Their main requirement is that the logo is printed in silver onto the skin.

My initial suggestion is to either silkscreen or foil press the labels as these processes are best used for printing onto surfaces other than paper.

We did a test of both procedures and concluded that both processes work well on crocodile skin. I consulted the designer and he decided to proceed with the foil press since he prefers the silver effect, which is not possible to achieve if we were to silkscreen the labels.

To ensure that the silver foil is imprint clearly onto the labels, a special alloy mold of the logo is commissioned. This is also because of the texture and thickness of the crocodile skin itself.

Currently we have just done a test run on 3 sample skin labels, which were taken from different areas of the crocodile skin for best effect.

I will be sending them to the bag designer for final approval.