80% Gold Coverage – Controlling Flatness in Heavy Foiling
The Challenge
The instruction repeatedly emphasized: "Large foil area, must be solid." Both book covers and the slipcase featured extensive gold foil stamping.
Large-area foiling on textured paper often suffers from pinholes (incomplete transfer) or picking (foil pulling up the substrate). Additionally, the intense heat required can cause the greyboard to warp, compromising the structural integrity of the slipcase.
Our Solution
- Zoned Temperature Control: We utilized advanced plating techniques that allow for variable temperature and pressure adjustments across the die, ensuring solid coverage on large blocks without filling in fine details.
- Post-Press Flattening: After stamping, materials underwent a specific "cold press" leveling process to release thermal stress, ensuring the slipcase panels remained perfectly flat and dimensionally stable for assembly.
Challenge 3: Emergency Correction – "Surgical" Signature Replacement
The Challenge:
Mid-production, the client updated the copyright page, requiring a full reprint of the outer 4 pages of the first signature for both titles.
Since folding and gathering were already underway, there was a critical risk of old, incorrect signatures mixing with the new ones.
