How’s it done? A two colour foil print on a Moleskine notebook

When we say that foil printing is more of an ‘art’ more than a science, you may wonder what we mean. A lot of people assume that we just select the right settings on the machine, put the sheet of foil under and hey presto, the foil print gets applied. Unfortunately it’s not that simple.

A two colour foil print we did for Wiserfunding recently is a good example of why foiling is an art. To achieve a high quality print of the logo onto the black Classic Moleskine notebook we actually had to use a blue foil as well as orange and white.

Intrigued?

Read on and we’ll  explain why we had to use blue, as well as showing you a video of the process in action.

 

Wiserfunding-two-colour-folied-logo-moleskine

Why and how did we use a blue foil?

Orange and white foils can sometimes appear a little translucent and subdued on a black notebook cover, so we often ‘double hit’ to ensure a rich bold colour – this means we pull the lever down to apply one layer of foil and then immediately do the same again to add a second layer of foil.

However, this wasn’t right for the the Wiserfunding logo, as the double hit of orange produced a shade which then didn’t match their logo. In such situations we therefore have to experiment, trying other coloured foils for a base coat. White sometimes works but doesn’t always give the result needed; so we’ve used everything from red to silver to neon green before.

With this logo, applying white underneath the orange didn’t give the best colour so we had to try alternatives and eventually discovered that a pale blue foil base meant the orange looked the perfect shade against the black cover.

Once we’d worked this out we were ready to go ahead with the foiling.

 

The two colour foil in action.

As the above video shows, with the Moleskine notebook in position, we first of all printed white for the text and the pale blue where the WF part of the logo was to go.  The white foil was then moved to recover the ‘wiserfunding’ text and a piece of orange foil laid over the blue WF; a second print hit then takes place to give the final finish.

The result is a strong, crisp white and a clear orange in the correct shade, unaffected by the black cover underneath. This double foiling process does add more time, but for us it’s all about ensuring the client gets an outstanding finish. (We don’t make any extra charges for having to experiment and use two hits to get the best result possible).

 

The finished product.

The two colour foil printed Moleskine notebook formed part of a stationery set that Wiserfunding, the AI based credit risk specialists, gave to their staff and used for promotional purposes. They paired the Moleskine with an engraved pen and presented them in a customised gift box (also foil printed by us).

To find out more and see the products up close, head over to our gallery to see the project.

If you’d like to get advice on having products foil printed the give us a call  on +44 (0)1303 720700; our in-house team are hugely knowledgeable and can advise you on what’s possible.

Foil printed Moleskine notebook and pen set