Stamping

A custom copper die is made for every foil stamp design. A separate die is always required for each placement (front cover, spine, back cover).

Depending on the complexity and size of the design, sometimes more than one die is required. If you are placing a reorder of a foil stamped book, we may still have your die.

We usually keep dies at our facility for a year before discarding them. If we have yours, you won't be charged the die fee, but you will still have to pay for any setup fees.

We can add foil stamping to any printed book covers, including printed wrap hardcovers, printed linen wrap hardcovers, classic softcovers, printed softcovers, and saddle stitch booklets.

Note that we are not able to foil stamp on dust jackets.

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For certain foil designs not achievable through traditional hot foil stamping, we may be able to offer foil sleeking.

As of now, this process is available only for printed softcovers and printed wrap hardcovers.

The cover design must be laminated with Soft Touch Matte laminate. Then, the foil design is printed in solid black (K) on top of the laminated cover.

Finally, the covers are run through a process similar to lamination, where the foil material is heated and sticks to the printed black areas on the laminated covers.

This method allows for elaborate and detailed designs across the entire surface area of the cover. Dot and hatch patterns are possible, as well as fairly small text and complex line work / filigree.

Contact us if your foil design might be best suited for foil sleeking, and we can discuss what options make sense for your project.

Foil stamping can be done on the front, back, or spine of your book cover. For hardcover books, we recommend that you keep the stamp design 0.875" from the top, bottom, and outer edge of your cover.

This includes the top and bottom of the spine, when viewed vertically.

The reason for this is that the linen or paper cover material wraps around to the back of the cover boards, causing a slight difference in thickness, which can affect certain stamps.

We may need to use multiple stamping dies if your stamp design is large or complex.

When we review your order and file submission, we'll let you if multiple dies are needed, or if we have other concerns about your foil stamp design.

Foil stamping is a traditional book cover decoration that can be added to any of the books we produce. Foil stamps can be added to the front cover, back cover, and/or spine of a book.

The process begins by producing a copper die from your supplied digital files. The die is then heated and pressed into the book cover with intense pressure, creating an impression using the foil of your choice.

The result is a stunning debossed version of your digital design on your book covers.

Blind stamping is also available. This process is nearly identical to foil stamping, it just doesn't involve any foil.

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We typically keep foil stamping dies for one year. If you place a reorder of your book and we have the die, you will not have to pay the metallic die fee.

If you would like to keep the foil dies associated with your order, let us know and we can deliver them to you along with your books.

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Small text can be difficult to foil stamp. We generally don't recommend foil stamp text that measures smaller than 0.15" tall for lowercase text.

We can comfortably foil stamp a stroke with a thickness of 1 point, and depending on specific foil and cover material, we may be able to go thinner than that.

Metallic foils will typically stamp with greater detail compared to pigment foils (black, white, red, and blue).

For linen wrap hardcovers, we suggest coated linen cover material for complex or detailed foil designs.

Foil stamping can be done on any of our hardcover or softcover books. The level of detail that can be achieved in the stamping process depends on the type of book and specific materials used.

Some foils don't stamp well with certain types of book cover materials.

Blind stamping is possible for hardcover books only.

Feel free to contact us for more information or to discuss your files and stamping ideas.

Your foil stamp design is part of your cover layout, which you'll provide to us as a PDF. To create the stamping die, we require your foil stamp art in vector format.

It cannot be a raster image made up of tiny dots (e.g. a photograph, or a graphic edited in Photoshop). Vector art is typically created in programs like Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign.

Text can be left as a font, or converted to paths/outlines.

Depending on your book type, we may need multiple variations of your cover file. Please see the breakdown below.

• Linen wrap hardcover- Stamp placement layout only
• Printed wrap and printed linen wrap hardcover - Printed cover design by itself, without foil stamp; Stamp placement layout by itself, without printed background; Mockup showing the stamp and printed background together
• Printed softcover- Printed cover design by itself, without foil stamp; Stamp placement layout by itself, without printed background; Mockup showing the stamp and printed background together
• Classic softcover - If there is no printing on the cover, we just need a stamp placement file. If there is printing along with your foil stamp, then we need the same files required for a printed softcover.

For the stamp placement file, all graphic elements in the layout must be black (100% K) on a white background and at actual size. Don't make an effort to represent a foil color or linen material color when creating your stamp placement file. See our file preparation guidelines for more information.

We offer foil in the following colors: metallic gold (shiny or matte), metallic silver (shiny or matte), metallic copper (shiny only), black, white, gray, red, blue, and clear (gloss).

You can see examples of these foil colors here.

Custom colors may be available as well, feel free to contact us directly if you don't see what you're looking for.

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A blind stamp — impression only, no foil material is possible on printed wrap, printed linen wrap, and linen wrap hardcover books.

We cannot do a blind stamp on a softcover book, the cover material is not thick enough for the impression to be clearly visible.

The foil stamping process begins with creating custom copper dies from your digital files.

The dies are heated and pressed into the cover material under great force, resulting in a foil stamped impression of your artwork or text.

The foil stamp setup fee is for the labor to mount the copper die in the stamping machine, and precisely align the die so that the stamp appears in the correct place on the cover.

This work is required for each die associated with the book. The same amount of labor is needed whether the order is for 10 books or 500 books, hence the flat setup fee.

Please note that this fee applies per die. For example, if you have a foil stamp on both the front cover and spine of your book, that will result in two foil stamp setup fees.