Working with Foil & Gloss-Press®

The foiling process begins with printing all digital elements in CMYK first; this includes photos, customizable text, background artwork, digital graphics, patterns, color blocks, etc. Once digitally printed, the foil is pressed on top of the card. Minted offers a total of 10 different foil types and 1 Gloss-Press® texture. 

See below for guidelines on using our foil types and Gloss-Press® textures, tips on designing with these textures, adjustments to common registration issues, and correct file setup.

Foil Textures

Gold, Rose Gold, Silver, Glittery Gold, Bronze, Black, Ice Blue, Red, Strawberry, and Green

Our standard textures (Gold, Rose Gold, and Silver) are available across all foil-pressed product kinds; however other foil types are only available on certain assortments. Please reference the Challenge Kit, your File Request email, or our (NEW) Foil Master List FAQ to see which foil types are available for you to submit.

Gloss-Press® Textures

Minted offers 1 texture as part of our Gloss-Press® assortment: Iridescent Pearl. Please note that we have recently retired our Pure White, Pink Pearl, and Blue Pearl Gloss textures. 

Only some of these textures are available on certain assortments. Please reference the Challenge Kit PDF or your File Request email to see if gloss is available for you to submit. See more in-depth examples of each texture & guidelines below.

Iridescent Pearl

• Iridescent Pearl is translucent and should only be used on white or very light backgrounds.* It should not overlap any dark design elements.
• We do not recommend using Iridescent Pearl for designs with finely detailed foil elements.

* Please keep this in mind when using photos. Iridescent gloss cannot overlap photos.

Designing with Foil & Gloss-Press®

• Colorways: We recently enabled the ability for customers to pair any foil type with any available colorway (or "color theme"). See an example below. Because of this, we require that colorways vary in something other than just foil or gloss texture so we are not launching "duplicate" colorways for a design.
  
     
     
  
  For Foil-Press designs, we encourage artists to try to use a different foil texture for each colorway. This will allow for each colorway to display with a different "default" foil texture. Customers can then select another foil type to pair with that color theme if they'd like.
  
  For Gloss-Press® designs, since there are fewer available gloss textures, artists will need to repeat textures across colorways. See an example below. Please just ensure any designs that repeat in gloss texture vary in CMYK elements.
  
  
  In the example above, an artist could submit multiple colorways using the Iridescent Pearl texture and change the CMYK color of the editable text across colorways.
  
  
• Accessories: Currently, we cannot accommodate foil on the following items: backers, envelope liners, envelopes, tags, and stickers. Please replace foil elements with solid CMYK colors on these accessories.
  
  
• Text: If you are wanting to match any customizable text or artwork with a specific foil or gloss type, feel free to use the pre-determined CMYK values provided by our Production Team below.
  
  • Gold/Glittery Gold : (31, 38, 59, 11)
  • Rose Gold : (24, 52, 50, 9)
  • Silver: (28, 19, 19, 20)
  • Blue : (47, 14, 15, 0)
  • Bronze : (17, 54, 67, 17)
  • Red : (10, 100, 99, 2)
  • Green : (89, 27, 93, 15)
  • Strawberry : (5, 65, 28, 0)

Common Registration Issues & Adjustments

1. Inset foil borders
   Since foil elements may shift up to 1/16th of an inch during the foiling process, this should be taken into account when designing with borders. This drifting can especially cause misalignment for designs that have fine inset borders. In these designs, we encourage thicker borders that overlap edges of color.
   
2. Aligning straight edges
   Designs that create a “hard edge” between digital and foil elements are difficult to register perfectly, so we recommend adjusting the foil element to end more organically or overlap the digital elements slightly to trick the eye.
   
3. Foiling textured elements
   Textures should be removed to ensure better foil adhesion to the paper. Be cautious using textured fonts for foil elements.
   *TIP! Use the direct selection tool to select and delete these small open areas to achieve a flat foil element.
   
4. Large blocks of foil
   Large areas of foil can have difficulty adhering to the paper during the foiling process and may result in some areas of the foil flaking off. Avoid using large foil areas in your designs when possible.
   Example: On a 5''x7'' card, no single foil element should be larger than a 2''x3'' block or a 0.5'' thick stripe.
   
5. Varying weights of foil elements
   All foil elements in a design are pressed at the same time with equal pressure, so it’s important to have an even weight across all foil elements to ensure the best quality of foiling for your design.
   Note: Thin/small foil elements should have a minimum of 1pt thickness to ensure proper foil adhesion to the paper.
   
6. Foil Tolerance
   Since foil elements may shift up to 1/16th of an inch during the foiling process, we require a 0.125'' safety buffer between foil and digital elements.

Correct File Setup

Foil elements should be combined into one compound path, using only one clipping mask to crop the foil image. Place this in the FOIL layer in your templates after following the steps below.

1. Expand design elements
   All foil elements should be fill-only (no strokes applied). If foil elements include strokes, expand appearance to convert them to fill-only (Object > Expand).

2. Make a compound path
   Combine multiple design elements into one compound path by using the Compound Path function in the Object menu (Object > Compound Path > Make). 

3. Create foil clip group
   Use this compound path as your clipping mask by placing the compound path above a Minted foil texture (Select compound path and foil texture > Object > Clipping Mask > Make).

Looking for more tips & tricks on setting up foil? See our Top 10 Tips for Minted Foiling on Julep!