Electro Image LLC

Business printing in St. Louis offers many options that can boost your marketing strategy and help you stand out from competitors. Promotional products can now be easily customized with special features that create a better sense of branding that truly resonates with your customer base.

What you may not know is that your print marketing can be improved with various specialty-printing techniques like:

  • Akuafoil
  • Lenticular 4D Effect
  • Raised Ink
  • Spot Varnish
  • Clear Plastics
  • Silk Lamination

With all of these features, colors will look brighter, fonts will be crisper, and your marketing campaign will have an overall tone of professionalism. If you’re still using standard printing methods on all of your marketing materials, you’ll be glad to know that these customized printing options are available now.

They’re worth investigating to find how they can make your print marketing more attractive and more effective. Here’s how each feature works and which print products you should consider using them on:

Akuafoil

You’ve perhaps heard of Akuafoil as a printing process, yet didn’t really understand the term. It’s basically the placing of metallic foil on images and other graphics—and it creates some truly beautiful effects. For showcasing fonts or an image of your product, you’ll have a unique look on products of all sizes.

The Akuafoil technique gets applied via a four-color process for a variety of colors. To complete the technique, the foil goes down first on the product, followed by a layer of ink.

Best Uses: You have to see for yourself how bright the colors are on business cards and posters. Akuafoil particularly gives business cards an edge: you’ll be able to brand yourself in a way that’s not common at all.

Lenticular 4D Effect

Graphic-LusterBzCd-SocialMediaLenticular 4D printing creates an image transition as someone moves the card up and down, or left to right. It uses several graphics and employs a swapping effect to create movement of images when a viewer tilts the card from side to side. While this technique is also available in 3D, 4D adds an extra boost in appeal that many prefer.

Think of how powerful graphics can be. Now think about all that a lenticular 4D marketing product can do! Basically, you can tell a mini story or convey a compelling message.

Best Use: Business cards are important, and using more eye-catching effects on them will help your brand be more memorable. You can finally provide a wow factor to your business card you’ve always wanted.

Raised Ink

Have you ever wanted to add some texture to your marketing items? With modern printing techniques, you can. Raised ink-printing uses a process called thermography.

You may confuse this printing technique with embossing, though they’re different from one another. Embossing frequently affects the backside of a product, while raised ink easily goes on the front side of a piece. Raised ink also provides texture and a shiny gloss.

Best Uses: Letterhead is a good choice for raised-ink printing. You can embellish branding touches and add a level of tangibility to your correspondence. Business cards are also a popular item for this technique.

Spot Varnish

Varnish is a print coating that makes marketing products shine, but spot varnish is used to add depth to specific images that you may want highlighted, rather than the entire design itself. Spot varnish is one of those print-coating options many choose because it makes logos and other graphics look extra vibrant.

Better defined, varnish is clear ink available in different styles like gloss or matte. When you request a spot varnish, your printer will create a plate with your unique design, so that he can apply the effect only to the specific area of your marketing material.

You can apply spot varnish on virtually any printed piece, and the process creates an image clarity that looks close to 3D.

Best uses: Spot varnishes work great on brochures, business cards or postcard direct mail pieces.

Clear Or Frosted Plastic Cards

20-mil thick clear and frosted plastic is a durable, yet non-bulky way, for an impact impression to your branding possibilities. When you contrast your logo and other artwork against clear or frosted plastic, you create a professional and interesting effect. The plastic is also extremely durable so you can print these knowing they will hold up through repeated use.

Best Uses: Unique discount cards printed on clear plastic will bring a fun edge to any event promotion, and plastic business cards really stand out giving your brand a impression that goes beyond the first meeting.

Silk Lamination

No doubt you remember the old lamination methods of yesteryear and how they’d frequently get air bubbles under the plastic. This was usually applied to I.D. cards or similar items used in schools. The old lamination process is still around, yet this silk lamination is nothing like the lamination mentioned above.  Its uses are popular to apply a classy, professional feel to marketing materials.

When you use silk lamination on certain types of paper products, you get a smoother, matte surface that’s more durable. It works with a process that gives a “silky” texture.  It’s a very affordable way to add another level of professionalism to business products.

Best Uses: Try silk lamination on postcards or business cards to see a substantial difference in customer-perceived quality.

Many other custom ideas exist beyond Akuafoil, lenticular 4D, raised ink, spot varnish, frosted cards, and silk lamination. You can use UV high-gloss varnish as well, or even matte and dull coatings. Many custom dyes are available for popular types of marketing material projects you may have in mind. On small or large-scale items, customized techniques help you stand alone in a crowded marketing world.

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