October 2003: The Advantages of UV Coating

You’re almost finished with the design for a client’s annual product catalog. It’s a gorgeous piece, with several 
carefully-placed images on each page. As you review the layout, you realize that the heavily-used catalog will likely need to be coated to give it some durability. Then another thought pops into your head: Those product shots look great, but they’d look even better if they really stood out from the page. Is there a paper coating that can do that while also offering ample protection? 

Ultraviolet (UV) coating may be the solution you seek. UV coating can be used to create a high-gloss finish that makes colors appear to pop off the page. It’s ideal for spot-coating specific areas you’d like to highlight, or it can be placed over the entire sheet as an attractive, cost-effective substitute for film lamination. Popular applications include soft- and hardcover books; point-of-purchase displays; direct mail pieces; software and other consumer packaging; posters and folding cartons.

The UV Coating Process

At Eckhart & Company, UV coating is applied using a screening process, which begins with a screen that’s coated with an emulsifier and then exposed using a film positive. Any unexposed emulsion is washed away, leaving the image area that will be coated. UV coating is then placed over the image area on the screen press and cured using an ultraviolet lamp. The result is a hard, instantly-dry surface that helps protect the sheet.

This process allows us to control the amount of coating that is placed on different areas of the sheet. This is a key advantage over press-applied UV coating, as the level of gloss is proportional to the amount of coating applied to the sheet. Controlling the amount of coating also makes it possible to spot-coat specific areas of the sheet such as individual letters or portions of an image.

Coating and Finish Options

UV coating is available in both matte and gloss finishes. There are also many varieties of tinted and textured UV coatings to give your pieces a distinctive appearance. At Eckhart & Company, we can apply UV coating that glows in the dark or contains glitter or sand for texture. We can even perform raised UV coating, which gives substrates a look similar to embossing.

The Eckhart Advantage

As a complementary process, UV coating is most economical when it’s performed in conjunction with other processes such as mechanical or perfect binding, die cutting, point-of-purchase and media packaging construction and more. At Eckhart & Company, we combine production efficiency with dozens of texture and finish options to make sure you find a UV coating solution that meets your specific needs.

Back Issues:

• April 2004  Turn Your Mechanically Bound Book Into a Display Piece

• March 2004  Large Diameter Spiral Wire Binding

• February 2004  Perfect Binding

• January 2004  Our Capabilities

• December 2003  Turned Edge Advantages

• November 2003  Semi-Concealed Wire-O

• October 2003  The Advantages of UV Coating

• September 2003  Mechanical Binding Inserts

• August 2003  The Advantages of Prototypes

• July 2003  Calendars

• June 2003  Index Tabbing

• May 2003  Plastic Comb Binding

• April 2003  Mechanical Binding Options

• March 2003  News From BookTech

• February 2003  Plastic Spiral Binding

• January 2003  Serving Our Customers

• December 2002  Wire-O Covers

• November, 2002 Spiral Wire Production

• October, 2002 Wire-O Binding

• September, 2002 Mechanical Binding Basics

• August, 2002 Cased-In Wire-O