You know the old saying, “seeing is believing”. In print, it is particularly important to see how your artwork and speciality effects translate to real packaging and labels. It can ensure you get the best from your foiling services and other decorative touches. A great way to do it is through the power of custom print proofs. They offer us a more accurate representation of how the final design will appear.
The final packaging’s shape, contents, store lighting, and other real life factors can lead to your product flopping. This is despite it being thoughtfully designed. As a result, you need to vet it via a proof and design procedure.
What’s more, packaging with speciality finishing effects has extra elements. They are ones capable of influencing the product’s presence. Special coatings, metallic inks, and cold foil finishing options can differentiate your packaging. They will catch the eye. However, this is only if you do things right. What we are going to do here is talk about the power of custom print proofs with speciality effects.
What are they?
Let’s go over what print proofs are exactly. In a basic sense they are a physical or digital representation of how your final design will appear when you print it. They will let the designer better grasp how the artwork interacts with the elements influencing the packaging experience. They can do this before mass production, hence saving money and time.
The power of print proofs
Now, we can talk about the power the proofs hold to bring details to our attention. These are ones that could negatively affect your brand. You should think about them and your decorative finishes, including foiling services, so you don’t make a mistake.
Wrong pattern or colour
One common issue with this work is having the wrong cold foil pattern or colour. What might be the ideal metallic accent in a flat AI file can clash with the design after it is printed in 3D formats. A print proof will show any conflicting elements between your design, product packaging, and speciality effects. You will therefore have the chance to try separate patterns and colours to find what best suits the product.
Bad placement
After you’ve chosen the pattern or colour, it all becomes about strategic placement for total impact. For example, intricate foil patters can overwhelm people. This is if you put them behind or next to elaborate graphics or heavy texts. One recommendation could be adding heavy cold foil patterns next to solid colours so your design pops.
Also, it is possible for gold or silver foils to get lost if on clear or light backgrounds. A recommendation here would be adding extra elements or white space to heighten the foil’s WOW factor. This would depend on the print proof.
Clashing overprint
For those designers spec-out printing ink over foil substrates, proofs will offer you a superior idea of what your ink colour will appear like on the final product. Sometimes, the foil will drastically or slightly change what our eyes see. Also, you may need to alter the design, foiling services, or double print the ink through two colour stations. This is to obtain the saturation that matches your brand.
Content conflict
For packaging displaying the contents of the internal product, it is essential to see how your artwork will appear. This is with the product inside. Beautiful spirit labels could end up drowned out by the caramel colour of rum or whisky inside the glass. Moreover, folding cartons with window displays must consider the colour of the interior contents. Finally, it needs to pair with a complementing or contrasting pattern or colour to display the item.
Print proofs including speciality effects have the means to save you on headaches, waste, cost, and time. These are those associated with full production runs that are a total design fail.
You can rely on us for foiling services
At Foiling Services, we use fantastic technology to perform our foil work. It allows us to go beyond the standard shades of gold and silver. No matter the shade or pattern you go for, we can meet the challenges and then ensure the final look is exactly what you had in mind.
So, if you have an interest in using our foiling services, feel free to contact us.