Foil stamping is a kind of printing press technique that produces shiny design on any surface, including paper, textile, vinyl, hard plastic, wood, leather and any other material. The process uses heat and metallic film to produce shiny design on the surface. The films can be found in roles of different assortments of color, finishes, and optical effects. It can be found most commonly in standard gold or marbleized green. As far as finishing part is concerned, you can find matte, holographic, pearlescent, glossy, or opalescent finish. With semi-transparent layers, underneath color becomes visible, making the image vibrant with depth. Foil stamping can be used in diverse way to be innovative.
This is very much identical to letter pressing and design engraving, because unlike printing words and shapes it doesn’t use magnetism, plates, or inks. Rather it uses dies or sculpted metal stamps. Dies when heated seals a thin metallic leaf layer onto a surface, creating a raised impression on the surface.
Foil stamping is also known as hot stamping, foil imprinting, dry stamping, and also as leaf stamping. This method is often combined with dimensional embossing to imprint letters or designs. With foil stamping, three-dimensional effect can be also created, this is called blind embossing. For this, different colors of several foil layers or sometimes combined ink is used. The edges of the foil stamp are designed as straight, curved, or sculpted to pop-up the image or make it float above the page level. This printing press technique is widely used on books, greeting cards, business cards, office folders, and any set of personal or professional items.
