- What it is
- A finished card is a sequence, and the sequence is not negotiable. Print, then laminate, then strike anything that needs heat and pressure, then varnish, then cut the shape, then paint the edge. Each of those is a separate pass with its own registration to the sheet, so a card carrying three finishes has been located three times and the tolerances add up rather than cancelling out. Tooling accumulates too: a block, a die pair, a screen and a forme are four objects that each have to exist before a first run, and each is then kept for the reorder.
- What it is printed on
Matt art card is the most forgiving ground, because it laminates, strikes, varnishes and cuts predictably. Cotton is the choice when relief leads and varnish is off the table entirely. Bonded stock is for the card where the edge is also a finish. What decides the sheet is the heaviest finish on it, not the lightest.
- Matt art card, 400 gsm0.41 mmThe most forgiving ground for a stack of finishes, and the one that behaves the same way twice.
- Cotton soft white, 450 gsm0.66 mmFor relief-led work: it takes a deep strike, and it puts varnish out of the question entirely.
- Bonded duplex, 600 gsm bonded0.72 mmWhere the edge is one of the finishes, and the seam is the third colour in the design.
- How it feels
- A card that carries one dominant finish and one supporting one reads as designed. A card carrying four reads as a sample: the hand meets a rough patch, then a smooth patch, then a hollow, then a ridge, and stops reporting anything at all. Restraint here is not a taste argument — the finishes physically compete for the same surface and for the same light.
- What it suits
- Premium name cards, invitations, folder and book covers, and packaging where the object is doing the selling. It does not suit designs built on tight registration between two struck elements, and there are pairs that fail outright: spot UV over soft-touch film lifts at the edges, foil across deep laid or felt texture breaks into dashes, an emboss with a heavy solid behind it ghosts through, and a painted edge on a fibrous uncoated sheet wicks into the fibre.
- Lead time
- Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days. A cutting forme, a foil block, an embossing die or a screen made for the first time is made before anything can run; a tool already held is not.
- The common mistake
- Registering one finish to another. Foil to an embossed shape, a varnish to a printed edge, a die cut to a foil border — each of those asks two independent tools to agree to within about half a millimetre across a whole run, and they will not. Register everything to the printed sheet instead, design a visible gap or a deliberate overlap wherever two struck elements meet, and never let the piece depend on two tools landing in exactly the same place.
Print idea
Combined finishes on one card
What happens when a sheet carries more than one finish: the order the passes have to run in, the tolerance that stacks up across them, and the pairs that simply refuse to share a card.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
What combined finishes on one card is
A finished card is a sequence, and the sequence is not negotiable. Print, then laminate, then strike anything that needs heat and pressure, then varnish, then cut the shape, then paint the edge. Each of those is a separate pass with its own registration to the sheet, so a card carrying three finishes has been located three times and the tolerances add up rather than cancelling out. Tooling accumulates too: a block, a die pair, a screen and a forme are four objects that each have to exist before a first run, and each is then kept for the reorder.
Matt art card is the most forgiving ground, because it laminates, strikes, varnishes and cuts predictably. Cotton is the choice when relief leads and varnish is off the table entirely. Bonded stock is for the card where the edge is also a finish. What decides the sheet is the heaviest finish on it, not the lightest.
- The trim — where the guillotine falls.
- The keep-out, drawn inside the trim. Nothing struck may cross it.
- The strike, drawn shallow and lit from one side.
- A further pass: a block strike, drawn as relief because foil colour is not simulated. It is registered to the printed sheet, never to the pass before it.
- A further pass: a spot varnish with a hard edge, standing proud of the sheet. It is registered to the printed sheet, never to the pass before it.
- The tolerance between passes, drawn as the gap it has to be designed as. Two tools will not land in the same place.
The specification
Six fields, and the last one is the useful one.
The same six questions are answered for every entry in this section, in the same order, so two objects can be compared without reading two pages of prose. The mistake is stated last and stated plainly, because it is the one that costs a reprint and it is the reason this page is worth sending to a colleague.
Where this sits.
Every entry is indexed three ways, because a buyer arrives knowing the occasion, the object or the material and almost never all three.
- Application
- Format
- Material and effect
Also worth looking at
- Raised spot UVStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Blind emboss and debossStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Painted-edge cardStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Foil-blocked invitationStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Every service, groupedSpecifications, stocks and finishing
- Every print idea, indexed three waysThe section index
- The materials libraryCaliper, weight and what each finish costs
Send the specification for this, and it comes back quoted.
Every job is quoted from its specification — stock, quantity, sides, finish, size and deadline.
- Quantity
- Stock — or the feel you want, if you do not know the stock
- Sides printed
- Finish
- Flat and finished size
- The deadline
Artwork is welcome but not required to start. Email sales@ezprint.com.sg if you would rather attach files.