Varn_ ishes
A varnish is a colourless coating that is often applied to a printed piece to protect the substrate from scuffing, wear or smudging. Varnish can also be used to enhance the visual appearance of a design, or elements within it. Varnish can produce three finishes - gloss, dull and satin - and, while not strictly a varnish, UV coating can also be used to add decorative touches to designs.
Varnishing is quite similar to laminating as, applying a varnish increases colour absorption and speeds up the drying process. By ‘locking in’ the printing ink under a protective coat, the varnish helps to prevent the ink rubbing off when the substrate is handled. Varnish can be applied in-line or ‘wet’; which essentially means it is treated as additional colour during the printing process. a wet layer of varnish is applied on to a wet layer of ink, and both are absorbed by the stock. Varnish performs better on coated substrates, again because less is absorbed by the stock.
Gloss A gloss varnish reflect back light and is frequently used to enhance the appearance of photographs or other graphic elements in brochures, as it add to the sharpness and saturation of images. Matt (or dull) A matt varnish is typically used with textheavy pages to diffuse light, reduce glare and so increase readability. It gives a non-glossy, smooth finish to the printed page. Satin (or silk) A satin varnish is a middle option between the gloss and matt varnishes. It provides some highlight, but it is not as flat as a matt finish.
Spot Varnish You can buy spot varnish in the LCA print resources. Which gives slight gloss aesthetic. If you wanted to apply a spot varnish you would have to prepare a paper silk-screen exposed with your designand printed with the silk-screen. You would normally leave this process until the very end of the production stage because of alignment issues.
Neutral Machine sealing is the application of a basic, almost invisible, coating that seal the printing ink without affecting the appearance of the job. it is often used to accelerate the drying o fast turnaround print jobs (such as leaflets) on Matt and satin papers upon which inks dry more slowly. UV varnish UV varnish is a clear liquid that is applied like ink and cured instantly with ultraviolet light it ca provided either a gloss or matt coating. Increasingly, UV Varnish is used as a spot covering to highlight a particular image because it provides more shine than varnish.
Full-bleed UV The most common type of all-over UV coating. largely because it produced a very high gloss affect. Spot UV The varnish is applied to highlight discrete areas of printed design, both visually and by imparting a different texture. The effect of spot UV can be maximised when it is applied over matt-laminated printing. Textured Spot UV Texture can be created with spot UV varnish to provide an additional tactile quality to a print piece. Example of textured spot UV varnish effects include sandpaper, leather, crocodile skin and raised.
Lam_ inatio n Film lamination is glued to the stock as it goes through the heated roller under high pressure, It is applied from roll on to overlapping sheets, leaving the gripper edge and the sides free for any other processing, But laminated sheets must be left for the adhesive to dry completely, before operations such as guillotining or embossing can be performed with confidence. However, if you are Laminating a print at LCA James (Digital Print) uses a sheet of laminate which he cuts down to size and sticks onto the your pages for you. He then puts it through a cold press secure the laminate to your print. A sheet of laminate from Digital Print costs 50p per metre.
Laminate is thin film that is applied to one or both sides of a printed stock. Lamination provides a range of benefits, it adds strength as well as gloss. It improves sheet or rigidity, and can make your print waterproof, tear-proof and tamper-proof.
Don’t Forget! Ink that is to be varnished or laminated should be quick drying, with little residual solvent, and absolutely no wax additive. too much anti-setoff spray can have an adverse effect on either process. metallic inks should not be varnished. They have their own sheen, after all.
DieCuttin g
Die cutting is a process that uses a steel die to cut away a specified section of a design. It is mainly used for decorative purposed and to enhance the visual performance of a piece. In addition to altering the shape of a design for visual enhancement, a die cut can serve a functional purposes such as creating an aperture that allows the user to see inside or through a publication.
Die-stamping can produce a three dimensional low relief effect on paper or cover board. It works as a kind of heavy handed letterpress, with the additional assistance of a hollowed-out recess on the other side. The hallowed-out recess is in fact the die; the stamping part, the counter-die. The die is placed face upward beneath the paper. It is made in steel or brass from artwork, either etched or photographically like a process block, or
engraved by a computer-controlled machine tool. Die stamping can be used blind, to produce the subtle effect fond on letter head, or inked. Or a die can be used with metal foil, to make the bold impression that is so popular on the covers of blockbuster paperback books. Die-cutting uses sharp steel rules in a wooden die to cut shapes from paper.
Laser Cutting is really the only type of die-cut we can do in LCA but you can produce incredibly intricate patterns and designs. You can cut through most substrates apart from metal or shiny metallic substrates. You can use it to make greetings cards and/or for see-through logos on business cards. Don’t forget! You must include smalls tabs off 0.3 to 0.5 mm tp prevent the inner counters of letter, for example, from falling out.
Embo s s Debos s
Embossing, similar to die-cutting, also gives the stock an area of texture. It is a design that is stamped into a substrate with ink or foil, which results in a three-dimensional,raised, decorative or textured surface to provide emphasis to certain elements of a design.
There are two ways of embossing / debossing you can do at LCA: The first way involves using the laser cutter to either cut or engrave the design you want to emboss / deboss onto a piece of wood or acrylic. You then put this with your chosen substrated, which can printed on, in to the hydraulic press in Rossington Street Print Resource. The second way involves etching the design you are going to emboss / deboss onto a copper plate using photosensitive film. You then use the copper plate as to emboss / deboss your design onto your chosen substrate using the same Hydraulic Press in Rossington Street Print Resource.
Emboss / deboss using lasercut wood or arcylic.
Emboss / deboss with etched copper plate.
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Foil Blocki n
Foil blocking is a process whereby colour foil is pressed on to a substrate via a heated die, which causes the foil to separate from it’s backing. The foil is a thin polyester film containing a dry pigment. Several terms are used to describe this process including foil stamp, heat stamp, hot stamp block print and foil emboss.
Hot foil stamping, or leaf stamping, transfers a foil coating from a carrier roll of polyester , by means of a heated die. The coating can be metallic, matte, pearl, or even a hologram. This method uses heat and pressure to attach the foil to the substrate, either a rotary method, in which the foil is applied in-line, or using an off-line hot stamping press. Cold-foil Stamping is used to decorate bottle labels, cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical packaging. Metallic stamping foils are transferred to a substrate by means of a UV-curable adhesive applied to the substrate by either offset or flexo printing. then the cold stamping foil , comprising a carrier foil and stamping layer, is laminated onto substrate. when the adhesive is cured, the carrier foil is stripped from the substrate.
You can do hot foil stamping in the Blenheim Walk print resource. Similarly to varnishes, you have to expose a silkscreen with the design you need to foil block onto a textile screen. You then need to screen print with a special glue which you can buy from the Blenheim Walk print resource shop. You can leave the glue you have printed with to dry and it’s only when heat is applied to it does become sticky once more. This is when you put the foil on top of your printed design and place in the heat press. The heat press should take roughly 12 seconds to heat the glue enough to stick the foil onto you design
End_ Paper s
Endpaper are the heavy cartridge paper pages that are found at the front and back of the a hard back book and joining the book block to the hard back binding. They can be made into an additional decorative feature of a publication as they often feature designs, motif or maps, or the use of coloured stock. It adds an element of texture to a book as they use a different stock to the rest of the publication.
To apply endpapers, the sections of a book block are first collated. Sheets of, typically cartridge paper, are then glued on along their folds and one is pressed against the facing edge of the spine and one to the spine on the other side of the book block. Finally, the hard cover is then glued and attached to the endpapers to produce the finished casebound book.
Perf_ oratio n
Perforation or Perf cutting is a process that creates a cut out area in a substrate, which weakens it for detaching. It would be typically used for a particular pages of a publication in which you, as the designer, want the viewer to interact with the design. It would allow them to a rip out, for example a poster which they could stick on their wall.
There are many ways you can perfrate a certain design. Perforation can be done on the printing press, by means of a perforating strip attached to the impressions cylinder (eventually ruining the blanket). If you were printing something from a professional printing company such as Evolution Print you could specify the perforation as a spot colour. You can also buy a mini perforator from Hobbie craft or amaxon for ÂŁ3.50 . However, this will only allow you to do one type of perforation. You could perforate using the laser cutter in LCA, Although, it may be diffcult getting the settings correct for the substrate you are using it with.but there is room for experimenting.