Different types of Foil Stamping
There are 2 main choices we can offer you for foil stamping.
-Foil Stamping using a custom die
-Computerized or “Systems Stamping”
With a custom die, the customer must provide a vector based computer file of the type, logo, etc. A “vector” based computer file is one such as Illustrator (by Adobe) or Corel Draw.
From this file, we must make a “die”. The die style we use is magnesium metal and is of the 0.250″ depth. This die is then mounted onto the letterpress, and through heat and pressure, the “stamp” is created onto the book cloth material.
Here are a few examples of custom die stampings:
Silver foil custom die stamping on Advantage 9 Book cloth material
Black Foil on Red B Grade Book Cloth
In the example at the left, this book was just under 12″ square. The die size was fairly large, but still well within our maximum size of 9 x 14″.
The Brown Advantage 9 material is very nice and smooth, making hot foil stamping an easy process.
In the example below, the Red color Arrestox B cloth has more of a texture yet is still carrying a lamination in the material that allows for foil to adhere well. In this case the customer chose a flat black foil which really worked nicely to provide a sharp contrast against the bright Red book cloth.
You can also see the spine stamping on this. We perform the spine stamping and front stamping all in one pass if the area is small enough. This saves setting up the letterpress twice to do one pass of foil stamping for the spine and one for the front. Other binderies may not necessarily handle their work this way.
Houchen Bindery Ltd. will require one complete book block in advance of ordering the die. This is to ensure that we place the spine copy and the front copy precisely in the proper position for stamping.
0.250" Magnesium Hot Foil Stamping Custom die close-up
Systems Stamping: The other method of stamping is used primarily in Library Binding methods, but also sometimes used in short run edition work.
Here is a closeup of standard “Systems Stamping” from one of our System 3 stamping machines. Notice how the type font is just a plain style. The benefit here is that there is no die cost. The limitation is that there is a limited selection of type styles.
Systems 3 Foil Stamping Example
If you would like more of a run down on Foil Stamping options, cover material choices, foil colors, limitations, etc.- please drop me a line at mpugh@houchenbindery.com, or call me at 1-800-869-0420
