OUGD505 // What is Good // Foiling Branding Material

In my last crit, i spoke about the branding material and it was brought up that i could try and involve foiling into the work, this would create a upper class and high business feel to the branding stationery and give it that extra little glimpse in the light. I decided i would give it a try and learn something new. I havent used foiling before and also thought it was a strange technique but as you will see it worked out great.

I decided to use the darkish blue foil, this would pick out the blue within the branding material and also this is main accent colour i have been using throughout all other shops.

The process of doing this is fairly easy, once you have printed the work correct the  you simply place the foil on top of the area it needs applying to, then sandwich it beween some paper so it doesnt crumple the whole page. Once this has been applied the foil will stick to the work all the time.

With my branding material it was quick hard to think of what to do initially, because all the material included imagery and gradients within the branding material which the foil could stick to. I started off by doing some testers and then deciding on the final test run.

Initially i tried out the foiling on stock which i had printed the whole image with CMYK, i wasnt sure if the foil would stick to any of the print because i was told it had to be black toner for the foil to stick to. But as you can see above the foil has stuck to all of the print. I dont want it to stick to the gradient, so this is something that i am going to have to think how i can overcome. 

On the second attempt the top type section of the letterhead has foiled really good and covered all the type leaving no black ink area, this is good and works well within the letterhead design. 

Again as you can see the bottom section of of the letter head has again all been foiled slightly. The gradient has still attracted the foil and it doesnt look that good. 

To get around the foil sticking to the gradient i had an idea that could stop this from happening - in order to make it still print in the correct way , I will print the bottom section in CMYK and then put the stock back into the printer and print the logo and header type in pure black over the top. This will make the foil only stick to the the pure black areas. 

This again didn't work and the foil was still sticking to the gradient area. 

So i took the decision to just foil the type section on the top of the page. This adds small detail to the letterhead to improve the design communication and make it seem that bit more valuable. The foil adds some sort of class and wealth to the design which i also like the look of too.  After numerous trys at getting this right this last one came out really well, the lettering is crisp and clean cut around the of the printed type. 

Here you can see that the bottom section of the poster is still present in the design - this holds all the designers information and the logo. 

I wanted to apply to foil to other products within the branding, i thought it would be appropriate for the compliment slip to have the foil applied to. In order to do this i had to change the design of the compliment slip slightly. Originally the 'with compliments' type was over the gradient section and closer to the bottom of the compliment slip. As i found with the letterhead the foiling didnt work overlapping the gradient, so i have altered the design to bring the 'with compliments' above the gradient and in the normal stock area. 

As you can see here the foil has completely stuck to the 'with compliments' section with full coverage and a nice crisp outline to it all. I was really happy with the result of the application of the foil. 

This is the final result of the compliment slip. The altered design still works aesthetically with the rest of the products and the foiling ties in with the letterhead. 

To tie this technique across other products within the module, i thought it would be good to foil the front of the research booklet. 

Here you can see that the front cover for the research has been foiled. In order to get the foiling really crisp over the type, i double printed the front cover by sending it through the printer twice. As you can see this has made the foil stick really well to the printed type and has fully covered it all. 

Although in double printing the front cover, you can see here that my name on the bottom of the page has mis-aligned when sent through the printer a second time. 

This was printed onto bulky newsprint  and then foiled over the top, with the blue foil. The result of this was much better than the previous and the foil has stuck to the majority of the type. This shines great in the light and catches the light really well, meaning it will look even better under a strong night overnight. 

After trying the bulky newsprint i had a go at using a thicker stock - watercolour paper. As you can see from a general view of the front cover the foil has stuck to the type pretty well and looks like there is full coverage. 

But when you look closer you can start to see there is more bits which aren't as covered on the type an the research booklet type underneath and started to disappear. I think the heat of the laminator has affected the print below. This isn't the result i wanted and won't be the cover i will choose to use. 

By doing this small foiling technique on these products i have tried a

out a new techniques, one which has gone quite well and adds to the design of the branding material.