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Originally, foiling was done by hand using gold leaf. This made it an expensive process and reserved only for the finer things in life. Technology since developed which brought along new machines for stamping and alloys which were cheaper than gold. The process of foil blocking became much more accessible allowing small and large companies alike to give their designs the shine and sparkle to stand out.
Once you have established the design for your packaging - whether it’s a bottle, jar, lid, or any other container – it is then etched onto a foiling die. A die is much like a rubber stamp, however it is made out of metal.
Generally the process is to heat the die up in a hot stamping press and a roll of thin foil comes between the die and your packaging. The two are then stamped together using a great deal of pressure, and the combination of pressure and heat transfers the foil to your packaging.
Foil blocking is primarily used for text and design, but foil banding is also available if you’d like a simple but elegant strip of foil around your container.
Another method is by using adhesive. This is particularly useful when using foil on material such as glass or if you have other elements of design like acid-etching or print. This is due to the heat and pressure from the general method potentially damaging the existing design, or worse, the container itself.
Your standard go to type of foil. This foil looks like metal and is available in in common metal colours such as gold foil, silver foil, bronze foil, copper foil and chrome foil. There are coloured options available too such as metallic red foil, green foil, blue foil, purple foil, pink foil, and so on.
These foils are available as either matt or gloss but have no metallic feel to their shine. These are useful when your design needs to be more subtle on your packaging. For example, you would have a pink pigment foil stamped on to your black bottle, without the shine of the metal foil options.
This type of foil displays a very bright rainbow effect, much like the small logos found on debit and credit cards. This type of decoration is especially popular with younger age ranges.
This type of foil is almost translucent and has a pearlescent shine. This type tends to be used to give a particular part of a design prominence without feeling metallic.
Have more questions? Get in touch with us to discuss your requirements!