Cold foil technology, where foils are applied inline on high-speed sheetfed presses, is gaining popularity commercial print markets. Heightened customer demand for producing special effects—and cost and efficiency gains from applying foils inline—are moving the once highly specialized, offline process into the mainstream. These systems, mounted on sheetfed offset press units, offer an affordable way of applying foil on paper and fast changeover to switch back to putting ink on paper.

Cold foil is an inline process and does not require heat for transfer nor expensive dies to define the design. Instead, cold foil systems are made up of two units: one unit of the system applies an adhesive that defines the imprint for the foil, and the second unit releases the foil from a carrier sheet and applies it to the substrate.

Registration issues are the same for cold foil as for trapped or overprinted ink on ink. The printing plates used in the process are the same as those used in conventional offset printing. No special makeready is required for the process.

Cold foil offers printers a range of colors and effects. The foil accepts overprinting of halftones and a full range of metallic colors using standard inks and varieties of foil to achieve the desired effect. Range of coverage is from the smallest font reverse-outs to full-sheet solid coverage.

Cold foiling boasts many advantages when weighed against the benefits of high-speed press throughput—full foil coverage, pre- or post-print application, overprinting and halftones, textured applications, no substrate distortion, no die cost, low energy requirements, fast makeready times, no additional staff requirements and near elimination of registration problems—the process seems to be a net winner.

For print customers, the cold foil option broadens the palette of design options. The same rationale that is used for including foil in packaging—increasing product sales can be applied to flyers, magazines and books. Because foil can be treated like a color and integrated into a design, designers will be more likely to use metallic colors, without the fear of complicating or delaying the print run.

Besides the range of colors available in foil, designers can specify foiled jobs overprinted with halftones or solid and process colors. Hot foil stamping typically requires a base material where the first layer is a silver-colored aluminum that is vacuum-metallized onto the base foil, and a second layer that often is the colored coating for the aluminum base. This means that the printer must restrict the range of colors available or order the color foil on a job-by-job basis.

For the designer, it means there is no restriction on the number of foil colors used in a job, opening the door to a new range of visual effects.

Register today to recieve our media kit with Full Color Cold Foil samples.