Hot foil stamping is a very popular choice today because it’s incredibly distinctive and offers a genuine opportunity to stand out. Whether on marketing assets or packaging, the use of hot foil conveys messages of quality and provides a way to introduce customisation into any process. One of the best attributes of hot foiling is how versatile it is. Depending on the hot foil machine that you have you can foil on a range of different materials. Three of the most popular are paper, fabric and leather.
- Paper. The use of paper for hot foiling is widespread, as it provides a great base for just about any design. It’s simple to recreate your branding or imagery with hot foil dies that can be used to replicate it time and time again in your chosen metallic. Paper is used across the board as it’s easy, inexpensive and very well suited to hot foil dies. For example, if paper is the material that you choose, then this allows for a complete impression of the design, so you’ll get a clear and deep repetition every time. Paper is also very lightweight so it’s easy to use with most hotfoil dies and most hot foil machines. The only downside is that large pieces of foil can sometimes tear through such a lightweight material.
- Fabric. This is a very wide category, which leaves plenty of room for creating unique and distinctive designs that also have a great textural feel. Hotfoil dies can accommodate many different types of materials and there is plenty of scope to experiment and try and test to find exactly the right option for you. Whatever the colours or patterns that you’re keen to capture, there are so many fabric options that this is an ideal choice to hot foil on. There are major advantages to combining hot foil and fabric, including resistance to stretching and discolouration. The only thing to bear in mind with fabric is that the thicker it is, the less likely the end impression will be a clear one.
- Leather. We have been hot foil stamping leather since the process was first used – some of the oldest books have traditional hot foil stamping on their leather covers, for example. Today, there is no doubt that paper is the most commonly used fabric for hot foiling but leather still gets the metallic treatment, especially when it comes to using this to denote luxury or to customise leather goods. Leather is a very durable medium and this is key for those looking to create something long-lasting. Pieces often tend to be unique, which has real appeal for customers, and there is a wide variety of different colours and types of leather to work with. One small downside of leather is that it can be more expensive than paper or fabric.
Hotfoil dies can be used with a whole range of different types of materials as it is such a simple and versatile process – but paper, fabric and leather tend to be a good place to start.
Metallic Eleephant craft high quality hot foil blocks in magnesium in our fleet of etching machines, using traditional and time-honoured methods of acid etching while embracing the latest technology with our outstanding quality CNC-programmed brass blocks. Contact one of the Metallic Elephant specialists to see how we can help.