Foil Blocking & Spot Varnish examples

I've been looking for examples of different print techniques to see examples of how, for example in this case, foil blocking and spot varnishing has been implemented professionally for clients and what kind of effects it can give. As my knowledge in print production slowly increases I think I can better analyse and estimate just how each effect was produced.

As I understand a spot varnish is a clear sort of 'lacquer' applied onto certain areas of a product to highlight certain areas, sometimes to great effect as it's subtle yet effective. Varnishes can be matt or gloss. Sometimes with spot varnishes the printers apply a matt UV and then a gloss UV. UV means ultraviolet radiation, which is the heating process. You can coat glass, plastic, paper, wood and even aluminium cans. Sometimes a printer will apply a clear varnish all over a print, to give the colours more of a vivid and professional gloss.

Foi blocking is literally the application of a pigment or metallic foil, most often gold or silver to a material. Mainly a commercial printing process although you can do a pretty good job yourself at home.  Foil blocking can also be combined with embossing to create a really cool 3d effect, often used commercially for a front cover or something. Usually you would laser print toner, or screenprint onto a surface, the exact design you want, for example type or image. You would then apply the metallic foil to the surface and evenly heat this surface. Commercial printers have full heating blocks or maybe uv radiation similar to what is used for a spot varnish.Once the foil is heated it perfectly sticks to the inked areas, and perfectly should peel away leaving a foil blocked/stamped area.

Foil blocking can be very economical for short run jobs.

Often used for corporate branding and even objects such as pencils, wedding cards etc.

Black foiling on a slightly embossed surface, you can see a little lip in the edges of the text on the black stock.

Gold metallic foil block on grey stock works very well. Covers for Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Design and Art Direction by Julie Kim and Ryan Ras, heraldry design by Adam Hayes.

Gold foiling

Either black foiling or a clear gloss spot varnish, they would produce very similar results in this instance. By Creatviespark, a branding agency for Police sunglasses.  a raw natural finish black cover with high gloss inner pages and a dramatic block foil logo on the front. 

This is so clever! This is a clear spot varnish on white uncoated stock. Using spot-varnished type the poster slowly reveals its message, as ink comes off on the recipients hands, in turn making the poster dirty. by Ronald Tiango

This is black foiling on textured uncoated stock. I think this works really well and I personally find it aesthetically pleasing too, it's economical in terms of colour and uses the stock really well. There's no other foiling in the publication apart from the cover and this really sets it apart from what was probably a black digital print (litho?) underneath. by Heyday, a branding agency based in Norway for an Annual report for a company operating in the fields of recycling, property and education.

Silver metallic foiling on a printed surface. As the whole surface has already been printed on, this was probably done in a slightly different foiling method, foil stamping.

Rainbow foiling. Uncoated stock and heat pressed foil probably. The foil itself was probably this rainbow pearlescent style.

DIY Foiling a purple metallic stock has been heat pressed, through a laminator over some black toner and is being pealed away.

Gloss spot varnish. This is an anniversary brochure by Werkling, a design agency for the Parliament of Finland. Using metal ink and spot varnish. I want to find out more about metal ink and what it actually is.

Wedding invitations are usually foil blocked. As is this one, it uses the stock and foil colours very well and has a pretty unique and inviting visual style. 

Foiling on packaging. The client for this is SEA, the materials are black uncoated stock and grosgrain handles. Processes are flood dye and foil block.

Flood dye eh? I'll look into what that is.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_stamping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_coating
http://www.viprint.co.uk/foil_blocking.html
http://www.benwells.co.uk/gallery.php?type=foil-blocking