All that glitters is not gold...

I have had many an issue with trying to print a certain part of my card designs in gold. I had to option of using gold foil or gold metallic ink.

The foil will stick to either; a screen printed glue or a carbon print (ie. laser print or photocopy)
I had tried using the carbon option before, but I have chosen to produce the cards on heavy watercolour paper* and the foil does not take well to it due to the texture. It does however take much better to the glue - as shown. The only problem is that the glue takes several pulls to make sure that it goes through the screen and as a result it bleeds a little. The letters are quite delicate shapes, and the bleeding shows, giving a rougher outline to the letters.



Screen printing the gold ink has worked quite well; shown below. The colour is not quite as bold or brassy as the foil, but the metallic element is still there, and it has quite a lovely glittery effect as well. The letters have come out quite cleanly (1 or 2 pulls works best).



I have to produce 50 cards this week for a client, and I have decided:
- Print the colour parts of the design onto watercolour paper using the laser printers
- Screen print the gold ink on to the cut down cards

* I am using watercolour paper because it is not actually white, which is warmer than stark white, and complements the colours and metallics better. It is also quite heavy and, when folded, stands up well. Overall it was the most suitable sort of stock I could find, and I think that it will work well for the cards.