- What it is
- Two related materials. A metallised face is a thin metal layer carried on film, either laminated to board or supplied as self-adhesive stock. A holographic face is the same idea with a microscopic pattern embossed into it before metallising, so it splits light and shifts colour as the piece is tilted. Both are printed with the normal transparent inks, and that is the whole point: ink on a mirror behaves as a filter rather than as paint. A red becomes a red metal, a black becomes a mirror seen through smoke, and anything meant to be white has to be printed as white ink.
- What it is printed on
A metallised or holographic film, either self-adhesive with its own liner or laminated to a board. It is not a sheet the caliper table holds, so no thickness is claimed for it here; the specification that matters is the pattern, the metal, and whether the face is self-adhesive or bonded to board. Cold-foil transfer is the related alternative — a metal layer laid down in register during printing rather than a metallised sheet chosen before it.
- How it feels
- Cool, hard and mirror-slick, closer to a foil wrapper than to paper. A holographic face is restless in a way nothing else on a printed piece is: it changes colour as it moves, so it reads brilliantly in a hand and photographs badly on a table. Under a laminate the surface calms down slightly and the pattern stays.
- What it suits
- Labels and seals, authenticity and security marks, cosmetics and beverage packaging, gift wrap and sleeves, event passes and anything meant to be noticed on a shelf under bad lighting. It does not suit long text, which loses legibility against a moving ground, it does not suit subtle brand colour, which the metal takes over, and it does not suit anything that has to be scanned or read reliably by a machine.
- Lead time
- Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days. Counted from approved artwork rather than from the enquiry.
- The common mistake
- Designing it on a white artboard in CMYK and expecting the metal to appear where the design left gaps. There is no white on a mirror unless white is printed, so a layout that assumed paper behind it comes back as a silver mess with the type swimming in it. Go through the artwork area by area and decide three things for each: what is opaque white ink, what is a transparent tint meant to take the metal, and what is left completely bare.
Print idea
Holographic and metallised substrates
A mirror or a diffraction pattern under the ink instead of white paper behind it. Every colour printed on it becomes a tint of the metal, which is the effect and also the trap.
Standard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
What holographic and metallised substrates is
Two related materials. A metallised face is a thin metal layer carried on film, either laminated to board or supplied as self-adhesive stock. A holographic face is the same idea with a microscopic pattern embossed into it before metallising, so it splits light and shifts colour as the piece is tilted. Both are printed with the normal transparent inks, and that is the whole point: ink on a mirror behaves as a filter rather than as paint. A red becomes a red metal, a black becomes a mirror seen through smoke, and anything meant to be white has to be printed as white ink.
A metallised or holographic film, either self-adhesive with its own liner or laminated to a board. It is not a sheet the caliper table holds, so no thickness is claimed for it here; the specification that matters is the pattern, the metal, and whether the face is self-adhesive or bonded to board. Cold-foil transfer is the related alternative — a metal layer laid down in register during printing rather than a metallised sheet chosen before it.
- The laminate. It takes the wear, not the print.
- The ink.
- The opaque white underbase. There is no white on a mirror unless white is printed, and every transparent tint above it becomes a tint of the metal.
- The face film.
- The adhesive.
- The release liner, peeled away at the moment of application.
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.
- Window and floor graphicsStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- Synthetic stock menus and tagsStandard turnaround is 7–14 working days.
- StickersThe specification, and how it is quoted
- Tissue packsThe specification, and how it is quoted
- Corporate giftsThe 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.