What is the Difference Between Hot Foil and Cold Foil Printing?

The two modern commercial methods of foil printing are known as ‘Hot Foil’ and ‘Cold Foil’. While the final effect of these two methods is very similar, they are substantially different in how they’re executed. These differences impact factors like production costs and design limitations. To help you decide between methods, lets break them both down in greater detail.

How Hot Foil Printing Works

Hot foil printing, done at a commercial scale, dates back to the late 1800’s. Also sometimes referred to as ‘hot stamping’, hot foil printing requires creating a separate stamp or die with the details that will be foiled. This stamp is then heated up before being pressed onto the paper. During this process, an impression of the stamp itself is often left in addition to the applied foil.

Advantages of Hot Foil Printing 

Hot foil details are highly durable due to quality of the bond between the foil and the substrate. Hot foil printing can also be done in the same pass as embossing or debossing the foil designs.

Disadvantages of Hot Foil Printing 

Tooling custom stamps is costly. What’s more, if you want to use more than one color of foil, a new stamp needs to be created for each color. Hot foil printing can also be more prone to registration problems, since the stamping needs to be done on a separate production line from the rest of the printing.

How Cold Foil Printing Works

Cold foil printing emerged in the 1990’s as a way to streamline the foil printing process. It uses an inkjet print head to apply UV-activated adhesive in the design to be foiled. Then, the foil is rolled onto the substrate and the print moves under a UV light. The light instantly cures the design, allowing the unused foil to be rolled away revealing the final foil design.

Advantages of Cold Foil Printing 

This method eliminates the need for tooling custom stamps, making it substantially more cost effective. It also allows for foiling, printing, varnishing, and other coatings to be all applied in one, continuous, inline process. This helps lower costs while reducing material waste and increasing production speeds. It also opens up more design options by facilitating the layering of different printing effects.

Disadvantages of Cold Foil Printing 

Cold foil doesn’t work as well on textured papers as hot foil. Cold foiling can also result in a slightly less shiny finish, due to the lack of heat and pressure during application.

Curious about how foil printing can benefit your brand?

Learn more about the Benefits of Using Foil Printing for Your Marketing Materials or dive into the basics with What is Foil Printing?