Foil Adds Sparkle and Margin 

While getting started printing with foil will be a trial-and-error process, here are some tips to reduce the learning curve. 
Sept 3, 2009

Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif., has made something of a specialty out of printing with foil accents.

By Dan and Kevin Corcoran, Contributing Writers

When we get an order at our shop, it’s not uncommon to hear an employee exclaim, “Foiled again!” That’s because as many as 15% of our orders involve some kind of foil printing, making the process somewhat of a specialty for our shop — Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif.

We’ve been doing foil work for about four years now, having added it mostly in response to requests from customers. Working with foil also is a result of the fact that R&D is in our shop’s DNA — it’s just part of who we are and what we do. R&D breaks up the monotony of constant production, but more importantly, it helps our relatively small shop find new ways to be competitive.

Generally, we don’t hard sell customers on the notion that they should add foil to their designs. More often than not, it’s the customer who comes to us with the idea already in his head that he wants foil. That’s a good thing for us, because it means that the customer already understands the nature of foil: It’s much more fragile than typical screen printing.

We wouldn’t want to talk a customer into the process and have him be disappointed by the somewhat less-durable nature of foil. Customers who know foil understand that the garments should be washed inside out on the gentle cycle, in cold water and then hang dried. Even with this gentle care, foil will eventually flake off — and that’s something the customer needs to know up front. Foil is just a less than- permanent decorating technique, plain and simple.

That said, we believe the best use of foil is as an accent only.

Probably half of our orders involve foil as a prominent design element — and that’s not our preference. When it’s used as an accent, if (and when) the foil washes away, the design as a whole isn’t compromised — only the accent is lost. Another smart use of foil is as a design element in distressed artwork. When the foil starts to pull away after wear and washing, it only adds to the garment’s distressed vibe.

We often use foil in combination with water-based inks since about 85% of all of our work is done with water-based inks. Foil, by the way, does not stick to water-based inks, which is great for a shop like ours that does a lot of water-based ink printing.

Occasionally, a customer will request foil with plastisol ink — and that requires some extra care, since foil will stick to plastisol. When using foil in a print with plastisol, we use an ink additive called Foil Release at up to about 10% by weight in the top colors only. Do not add a release agent to underbase inks or the foil adhesive.

Of course, these are the types of “gory details” that customers don’t need to (or care to) hear about — but they are vital if you are going to deliver a printed garment with foil that looks great.

Foil Fans
Foil has brought us lots of customers who couldn’t get the technique done elsewhere, or at least couldn’t get it at the smaller volumes that we’re willing to handle. We’ll do foil work on orders as small as 36 pieces. Niche-market customers who request foil include boutique fashion designers and urban/hip-hop designers. Both are extremely retail-oriented markets that can charge a premium for their wares — and foil fits in great with their designs and adds to the large margins they can command.

We generally don’t get requests for foil on, say, band merchandise. That’s not too surprising since most bands aren’t likely to sell shirts for $50 to $60 a pop. Likewise, the custom wholesale market isn’t especially keen on foil, largely because it just can’t justify the additional expense.

Adding foil to a 36-piece order might add as much as $3.50 per shirt. On higher quantities, the per-shirt charge falls to somewhere between $1 and $2.50.

Usually, we’re only putting a single foil color on a garment, not multiple foil colors. Suppliers offer equipment for doing multicolor foil prints, but that’s a new, fairly expensive technology that we’ve shied away from; our adventurousness has its limits. An alternative is to purchase rainbow foil or to lay down two foils on a design, but that’s not repeatable or mass producible.

Getting Familiar With Foil
Offering foil has been a great way for our shop to stand out from others. It’s also a plus for us because we’re based in the Bay area in Northern California, where most customers are hip to urban styles that incorporate foil.

Frankly, we’ve found that foil simply isn’t that difficult to do. Some of our local competition has discovered this too, and are now offering the service. If you are thinking about incorporating it into your shop’s offers, be aware that there is a learning curve due to the number of variables: how much ink you should use and how smooth that ink surface must be, for instance.

One thing we learned pretty quickly is that it’s not a great idea to print foil adhesive directly onto a garment using a manual press. It’s just too tough to get the perfectly smooth layer of ink or adhesive that you need for good results with foil. The bumpy layer of ink you get with a manual may cause some areas of the foil to stick and others where it does not. This creates little foil specks or holes.

Since we had only a manual press when we started our business, we found a reliable workaround. Essentially, we printed “transfers,” meaning we printed the adhesive directly onto the foil sheets, ran the foil through the dryer to gel the adhesive and then heat pressed the foil transfers onto shirts. This requires sticking the foil to the press platen using water-based adhesive — a delicate process.

Now that we’re on an automatic press, we print the adhesive directly onto the garment, using a thicker stencil and, sometimes, multiple strokes. We have found that a 90 count mesh gives the best results. Overall, the process looks like this: We print the adhesive, run the garment through the dryer and then put the garment on a heat press. We cut the foil to size (it comes in rolls) and heat press it at medium-to-high pressure for 12 to 15 seconds. Finally, we let the garment cool completely and remove the extra foil. (Specific step-by-step instructions for printing foil with an automatic or a manual begin on p. 38.)

Not surprisingly, the automatic press gives us better coverage and consistency than the manual press, mostly because there’s not a human drawing down the platen. Occasionally, though, we use the manual press for foil when we need to do a sleeve, leg or other odd areas or placements.

Forward With Foil
If you’re thinking of adding foil to your shop’s repertoire, be prepared to botch more than a few shirts as you learn the process. You’ll have to really stick with it for a while to figure it out. Our shop probably took three to six months to get it all worked out — including the right squeegee, the right angle, the right amount of ink and so on.

We use a 70-durometer, mid-range squeegee. For higher detail, we bring the squeegee angle to more of an upright position — although we discourage small details in designs that use foil. Avoid anything smaller than a 1-point line, and try to stay away from multiple lines next to each other. When it comes to foil, a general rule of thumb is that the less detailed the art, the more successful the finished result.

In terms of profits, the results of adding foil will be well worth the efforts. Foil itself isn’t terribly expensive and the markup is great. Foil rolls are generally about 12" x 200', although you can get rolls as wide as 24 inches. We can get about 200 foil accent designs out of a 12" x 200' roll, which costs less than $20 — so that’s about 10 cents each.

Spend some time finding a good foil supplier, though, as quality varies wildly — and not just by price point. Test a few prints side by side, and take a close look at the results, including what the foil looks like after a few washes.

Also, educate customers thoroughly about foil and its limitations. That way, you don’t get surprised, unhappy customers complaining about how the foil fell short of their unrealistic expectations. Our shop has a page of information about foil printing on our Web site, and we require customers to confi rm that they’ve read this information before approving their order.

Along the way, you’ll discover other do’s and don’ts, such as “Don’t put foil over seams or on ribbed garments.” In general, though, you’ll most likely find that adding foil to your shop is a smart decision that can lead to healthy profits.

Dan Corcoran is co-owner of Forward Printing, Oakland, Calif. Kevin Corcoran is the production manager. The shop uses a 10-color/12-station MHM E-Type automatic printer and an M&R Chameleon manual press. The brothers print apparel for several niche markets, including corporate, retail, clothing designers, band merchandise and skateboard companies. For more information or to comment on this article, visit forwardprinting.com. 

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