Also known as foil blocking, is when a depression is imprinted on a book cover and a metallic foil is applied. Hot stamping is most commonly to lift the presence of a book title or a solid graphic e.g. a company brand, a publisher’s imprint or line artwork.
It is “hot” stamping because the process sues heat to adhere the foil to the substrate. Cold foil stamping uses adhesive.
Foils include gold, silver, copper, holographic and a range of solid colours. See a range of foils: Kurz website
PUBLISHING TIPS 1. Make sure the stamp is not too close to the book cover edges – there should be a 10mm safety area. 2. Hot foiling is best for larger blocks rather than fine detail spread across the cover. If stamping is needed for fine detail, and that detail is spread across the cover it is most cost effective to use cold foiling. Hot foiling needs the production of a stamp and the larger the stamp the more expensive the process will be. 3. Preparing artwork for hot foiling is similar to what is needed for other treatments e.g. spot colours, varnishes. The artwork should have a CMYK layer and a separate layer for whatever is to be stamped. The stamping layer can be artwork that shows the stamping area as a solid black.
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