Can I print gold over dark purple?

Hey Ladies,

I’m working on a business card design for a client who wants a dark purple motif with gold text on top printed on kraft paper.  Initially I wanted to have the metallic elements foil stamped, but that turned out to be cost prohibitive.  I haven’t used metallic ink very much and don’t know if it would print well over the purple or if I would need to knock out the background image.  Thanks in advance for your input:)

Jessica

You will need to do a knock out. Good luck as that certainly looks challenging to print with the fine lines. Please post a picture of the finished card.

Hm. Foil stamping would give the desired effect, and a knock out will work but you’ll have to maintain a very tight registration. If it proves to be cost effective to do a third color run, I’ve printed an opaque white on dark background and then printed metallic ink on it with a nice effect. Not as good as foil, and you may run into trouble with the gold text disappearing on the kraft colored background if you knock out the gold areas from the purple.You can then even do another run over the gold with just varnish to make it really shiny, which I like to do. But then you’re up to 4 runs, and may just want to do the foil printing…

The other way I know how to get metallics to show up on dark backgrounds is more time consuming but VERY impressive. Do you mix your own metallics? If not, you’ll have to purchase metallic pigment/powder. Print each piece with the metallic elements in opaque white, and then immediately place the print in a shallow tray. Dip a very fine feather puff or powder puff in you metallic powder and coat the wet ink with metallic powder. It takes a bit of practice, so try it out first, but I picked this trick up from Greg Walters and it’s super dope! I wouldn’t attempt this with more than say, 500 cards or so. Also, you might want to wear a face mask if your shop is breezy. Don’t breathe the powder if it gets in the air, and keep the powder covered between prints or it will get everywhere. Good luck!

Thank you for your replies!  Seriously reconsidering the foil stamping option:)

Cheers,

Jessica

Is it just the M G that foil stamps? You won’t need to do a knock out if you use wax free ink. I can foil it for you very inexpensively, contact me

This sounds like something I’d want to try! Can you recommend a place where I could get the metallic powder/pigment? I’m thinking about printing in gold metallic ink on Lettra and since that doesn’t really look metallic, I can coat the ink with metallic pigment as you suggested. Thanks in advance!

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