- What it is
- A translucent, finely abraded film applied to a glass partition, door or shopfront and cut to a design — a band, a repeating motif, a logo, or a full panel. It scatters light instead of blocking it, so a meeting room keeps its daylight and loses its audience. On a full-height pane it is also doing the safety job: it is what makes the glass visible to somebody walking towards it.
- What it is printed on
Etch-effect self-adhesive film, also sold as frosted, sandblast or dusted-crystal vinyl. The frosting is in the face of the film rather than printed onto it, so the effect does not scuff away along a cut edge. Where a design needs brand colour, the same film can be printed, or a printed film laid alongside it. It is a film rather than a sheet, so the materials library holds no reading for it.
- How it feels
- Dry and very faintly powdery, closer to fine abrasive paper than to plastic, and noticeably cooler under a palm than the gloss films beside it. Applied well, the edge cannot be found with a fingernail — which is the entire test of a good manifestation install, and the reason it is worth watching the first panel go on.
- What it suits
- Office fit-outs, meeting and consulting rooms, clinics and retail changing areas — anywhere glass has to stop being transparent without stopping being glass. It does not suit textured or patterned glass, where the film cannot make full contact and silvers off in patches. It does not suit a weather-facing exterior pane either; etch film belongs on the protected side.
- Lead time
- Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days. Installation, where it applies, is scheduled on top of that.
- The common mistake
- Setting the manifestation height from the elevation instead of from the room. A band positioned by a designer at what looks like desk height on a drawing ends up at eye level for a seated person on one side and above the sightline on the other, so the room either feels boxed in or the glass stays invisible exactly where somebody walks into it. Mark the height on the actual glass with tape and stand in the room before anything is cut.
Print idea
Frosted glass manifestation
Etch-effect film cut to a pattern and applied to glass, so a partition reads as a surface rather than as an invisible hazard. Privacy, wayfinding and a visible glass line, in one layer.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
What frosted glass manifestation is
A translucent, finely abraded film applied to a glass partition, door or shopfront and cut to a design — a band, a repeating motif, a logo, or a full panel. It scatters light instead of blocking it, so a meeting room keeps its daylight and loses its audience. On a full-height pane it is also doing the safety job: it is what makes the glass visible to somebody walking towards it.
Etch-effect self-adhesive film, also sold as frosted, sandblast or dusted-crystal vinyl. The frosting is in the face of the film rather than printed onto it, so the effect does not scuff away along a cut edge. Where a design needs brand colour, the same film can be printed, or a printed film laid alongside it. It is a film rather than a sheet, so the materials library holds no reading for it.
- The face film.
- The adhesive.
- The release liner, peeled away at the moment of application.
- The glass. The film is on the near face, so nothing protects the print but the laminate over it.
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.
- Format
- Material and effect
Also worth looking at
- Cut and contour-cut vinyl graphicsStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- One-way vision window filmStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Window and floor graphicsStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Large formatThe 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.