Earlier this month Precise Continental’s Sheila Donnelly shared her design, typography and die-making secrets with us in the free PaperSpecs webinar “Design You Can Touch: The Power of Engraving.” And you still had questions, which Sheila gracefully offered to answer here.
1. I know that offset metallic inks have a shorter shelf life than traditional offset inks; how does the shelf life of metallic engraving inks compare?
Metallic engraving inks have a shorter shelf life than non-metallic inks.
2. What are your thoughts on combining engraving with offset printing, where you want a portion of your design engraved and the rest offset?
We combine offset and engraving every day. Bring your printer/engraver into the design process early on so they can discuss any concerns about combining.
3. I am working on a project for one of my best clients and am facing a couple of challenges: The piece has lithography, foil and engraving. I am told that the grippers are the same for foil and lithography, so the registration is not a concern for these two processes. But we are concerned that the registration will be impossible to hold for the engraving. Any tips? The other issue is that we are trying to match gold foil and gold engraving. Do you have any experience with this? Thank you!
For a project that has multiple print processes being combined I recommend contacting your printer in the beginning and showing them the design options. Registration can be held between offset, foil and engraving – this is dependent on the design and the registration. Gold foil and gold engraving will not match since they are two different types of materials. I recommend choosing complementary colored foils and ink so they work together instead of looking like they’re trying to match and not matching. Your printer should be able to show you different foil chips and engraving ink samples to find the ones that work best together.
4. Are Engraving presses still made or are they like letterpresses?
Yes, they are still made.
