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Giving Businesses’ Brands & Graphics A Real Punch
With the popularity of digital printing spurred by people wanting projects done quickly and cheaply many are forgetting the traditional techniques still available which can really help their brand and messages literally jump off the paper. Embossing is one of those techniques which we believe could experience a real resurgence as businesses look for new ways to help them stand out from the crowd.
Our operations manager, John Hill, explains further, “To make an embossing you need to first make a male & female block set which is called a Make-Ready. The letterpress machine then compresses the two pieces around the card to punch out the raised image or letters you want.
“We recommend embossing on a 250-350gsm card stock to create the desired effect. Anything lighter will just cut through the paper and anything heavier just won’t punch through clearly enough.”
Our original 1965 Heidleberg platen is a letter press printing machine which we have kept in operation specifically for
these specialist embossing jobs. While
creating the Make-Ready is quite an involved process requiring an engraver to
build the male and female blocks, it is actually very affordable and the result
is quite “outstanding” (pun intended).
There are two types of embossing processes:
- Blind Embossing – Where the type or graphic is simply punched into the card without any prior printing.
- Embossing – Where the type or graphic is printed first and then embossed to make the words or graphic stand out on the card.
“The most popular type is embossing,” agrees John. “This year we have mainly embossed business cards but we also recently embossed the Pure Print Personal Service Guarantee on our new brochure.”
