- What it is
- A brass block is cut to the artwork, heated, and pressed through a carrier film so a foil layer releases onto the sheet. Nothing is inked. The reason it matters on a dark or unbleached stock is opacity: process colour is transparent and mixes with whatever it lands on, so on brown board a printed gold is a muddy olive, while a foiled gold is gold. The block presses as it releases, so the mark is also a shallow deboss. On a coarse sheet that combination is the whole design — a smooth, bright island in a rough, matt field.
- What it is printed on
Unbleached kraft, heavy uncoated stock, and bonded board with a dark or coloured middle ply. All three have the same property and the same problem: there is no white in the sheet, so every transparent ink is mixed with the board before it starts. Foil is the exception, which is why a brown sleeve or a black tag carrying one struck mark and nothing else is a specification rather than a compromise.
- Kraft board, 350 gsm0.46 mmBrown the whole way through, so foil is the only mark on it that does not mix with the sheet.
- Bonded triplex, 900 gsm bonded1.24 mmA coloured middle ply that shows as a stripe at every cut edge, so the strike is not the only thing carrying the piece.
- Uncoated woodfree, 400 gsm0.55 mmEnough body to take the strike, and a matt surface that makes the foil look brighter than it is.
- How it feels
- Cool and slick against a warm, dry, faintly fibrous ground — on kraft the contrast is temperature as much as it is shine. The struck area sits a fraction below the surface, so a thumb crossing it drops and rises again, and on a coarse board that step is easier to feel than it is to see. The block also flattens the fibre it lands on, so the foiled shape stays smooth where the rest of the sheet stays open.
- What it suits
- Swing tags, packaging sleeves and boxes, café and bakery collateral, craft and wellness brands, certificates on dark board, and any piece where one bright mark has to do all of the work. It does not suit hairlines or type set very small, it does not suit a large solid area — a big block chills unevenly and the fill goes patchy — and it does not suit a strike across the deepest part of a heavy texture, where the block reaches the peaks and skips the valleys.
- 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
- Signing the design off against a metallic simulated on a screen. Foil is a stock material chosen from a physical swatch book in a fixed range of finishes, not a colour mixed to a build, and the range on brown board behaves differently again because the sheet shows through nothing and reflects nothing back. Choose the foil against the actual board before the block is cut, because once it is cut, changing your mind means cutting another one.
Print idea
Foil blocking on kraft and dark board
A heated brass block releases an opaque metallic or pigment layer onto a brown or dark sheet. It is the one mark that reads cleanly on a stock with no white in it, and it needs no underprint to do it.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
What foil blocking on kraft and dark board is
A brass block is cut to the artwork, heated, and pressed through a carrier film so a foil layer releases onto the sheet. Nothing is inked. The reason it matters on a dark or unbleached stock is opacity: process colour is transparent and mixes with whatever it lands on, so on brown board a printed gold is a muddy olive, while a foiled gold is gold. The block presses as it releases, so the mark is also a shallow deboss. On a coarse sheet that combination is the whole design — a smooth, bright island in a rough, matt field.
Unbleached kraft, heavy uncoated stock, and bonded board with a dark or coloured middle ply. All three have the same property and the same problem: there is no white in the sheet, so every transparent ink is mixed with the board before it starts. Foil is the exception, which is why a brown sleeve or a black tag carrying one struck mark and nothing else is a specification rather than a compromise.
- The trim — where the guillotine falls.
- The keep-out, drawn inside the trim. Nothing struck may cross it.
- The strike, drawn at a standard depth and lit from one side.
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
- Foil-blocked invitationStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Kraft and uncoated textureStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Holographic and metallised substratesStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Coloured-core swing tagStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- PackagingThe specification, and how it is quoted
- Paper bagsThe specification, and how it is quoted
- 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.