topics foil printing faq

Nothing says "extra special" like foil stamping, but what exactly is it? Foil stamping is also known as "foil embossing" or "hot foil stamping". It is a printing method of relief printing in which pre-dried ink or foils are transferred to a surface at high temperatures. This prized printing method allows us to simply create stunning wedding invitations.

Foil stamping is a special kind of printing procedure where heat, metal plates, die, pressure, an antique press, and metallic paper (foil material) is used to create various shiny designs and graphics onto invitations. First a metal plate/die (like stamp) is engraved with your design. The metal plate/die is then heated and pressed firmly onto your selected card with a sheet of colored foil, sandwiched between the two. As a result, the card is branded with your design in a beautiful metallic finish.

The first step of foil stamping is to make a metal plate/die, this is why there is the difference between full-area stamping and half-area foil stamping. Let's see the difference from the following two pictures.

As shown in picture 1, the area that we marked in red is the metal plate size we would need to make. Although only the top and bottom scrolls as well as the names are to be foil stamped while the main text is in digital printed, we still need to make a metal plate in scaled size so that it will include all foil stamping parts.
As shown in picture 2, the area that we marked in red would be the metal plate we need to make. Half-area foil stamping means foil stamping with a smaller metal plate with a smaller size, suitable for just foil stamping the bride and groom's names or a monogram.

Dealers who are requested to do foil printing for wedding invitations for their brides should provide us with following two basic elements.
No.1 Designs or Wording and Fonts
Requirements for Designs
You need to provide vector files or clear design without background and unambiguous pixels resolution ≥1200px of stamping parts. Accepted file formats for designs includes PSD, PDF, AI, EPS (under CS6 version), preferred file is AI. Files like JPG, PNG which are not editable, don't meet the requirements.

Notes for Wording and Fonts and Ink Color
For dealers who have no designs, we are glad to do layout for you based on your provided wording and fonts. Please write down the wording or fonts in a special requirements box or send an email to us directly. By the way, you can choose one of our free Invitation Templates or fonts that are so popular with our dealers. Just select it and tell us the code number.

No.2 Foil Colors
Our standard range of foils consists of the 12 most on trend colors. See the color chart below.