Digital Metal®: The Foil Stamping Alternative

What’s great about foil stamping

Foil stamping, also known as hot foil stamping or foil printing, is undeniably effective at transforming what might otherwise be a flat, constrained design into a high-impact, multidimensional design.

The shimmer and glow created by foil stamping is used by designers to shine a spotlight on your brand, communicating energy, sophistication, wealth, and brand value. Foil stamping not only does a remarkable job at capturing attention, but also directing attention to important elements in your design.

A delicate subject

As effective as foil stamping is at transforming a design, it’s also important to note that it has its limitations. Most noticeable of these is susceptibility to wear. If you’ve ever seen a credit card after being slid in and out of a wallet for months, you’ll notice the silver or gold finish on the embossed numbers and lettering begin to wear. This is very similar to what you can expect from hot foil stamping, or “hot stamping,” as we like to call it.

If you’re designing a card for repeated long-term use, and you expect the foil printing to stay intact, don’t. There’s another option, and long wear life is only one of its many advantages.

Why Digital Metal® is better

Digital Metal® (shown above), a new foil transfer process offered exclusively by Plastek Cards, provides many advantages over traditional foil stamping techniques. With Digital Metal®, a specialized ink is first printed onto the card’s surface, followed by a foil application that bonds to the ink. Once foil is applied, the cards are overprinted with color on both the foiled and non-foiled areas, resulting in intricate foil design details and custom foil color tones.

Digital Metal® Advantages:
• Maximum durability and resistance to wear
• Custom metallic color tones
• Full-face foil decoration
• Registration accuracy allows for finer design detail
• Gold or silver foils and iridescent effects or holograms
• Halftone foil dots and lines
• Pure white retains its color when overprinted on foil
• Variable data printing with foil

Due to its high registration accuracy, Digital Metal® can be used to reproduce designs with extremely fine detail and tightly wound design elements, combining ink and foil. The Digital Metal® foil technology essentially becomes one with the card’s surface, preserving the beauty of the final design. See Digital Metal in action