How to Supply your Spot UV File
We’re all attracted to beautiful, shiny things. It’s in our nature and it’s impossible to override. Your customer's marketing can make the most of these human instincts.
One way is to add StarMarque spot gloss highlights to your promo material. The contrasting matt base causes the highlights to shimmer in the light. And get noticed. Here we will tell you on how to set up your file for our Spot UV specifications. Below is a step by step guide on setting up your files in InDesign.
Artwork Specification
Here we will tell you how to supply your Spot UV artwork on our product templates.
- Make sure your Spot UV elements are selected and in the Spot UV spot colour, this is a swatch supplied in our templates, that you have to ensure the fill and stroke (if used) need to be before exporting your file.
If you need to create the swatch we have instructions below at the bottom of the page. - Place Spot UV elements on the Finishing layer in the Template - topmost Layer in the layers palette.
(Below any DIE-CUT elements, if you are using a shaped product template or something similar)
- Only use the Spot UV element(s) on the front page of your artwork.
- Spot UV must be set to Overprint from within your design application (this includes both fill and stroke).
Things to be aware of when using Spot UV
Design with a little tolerance for mis-registration
The UV varnish is applied using a screen printing process, and registration with print can vary by ±2 mm.
This means you should expect the Spot UV element to move around the page by up to ±2 mm.
If you are aiming to cover a printed shape having a hard edge, then the Spot UV shape should overlap the printed edge by 2 mm (see diagram on the right), to allow for any inherent variations in registration. Likewise, block shapes meeting the edge should be treated like backgrounds: bleed them to the very edge of the document page, and respect the Quiet Zone.
Don't try to align fine detail
Spot UV is not suited to alignment with fine detail, such as small type, or shapes with thin lines.
Our rule of thumb: avoid positive lines thinner than 1 mm, and avoid reversed-out lines thinner than 2 mm.
You’ll get best results when you don’t try to match the Spot UV to printed objects, and instead, treat it as a design element in its own right.
Avoid high-resolution Spot UV details
The minimum line thickness for Spot UV (when used as a design element in its own -not trying to register with underlying print- is 1 mm)
We recommend not using anything finer than this.
Avoid large Spot UV areas over the edge
Avoid large solid areas of Spot UV bleeding to the edge as chipping and flaking may occur once the job has been guillotined or die-cut.
Vectors only for Spot UV
Spot UV elements must be supplied in vector format; any text shapes to be spot-varnished must be converted to paths/outlines.
Solid varnish only, no tints
Spot UV cannot be specified as a gradient or tint, i.e. a changing tint from 100% to 0% over an area of artwork.
How to create the Spot UV Swatch
If you need to create the Spot UV swatch you will need to follow these instructions to the letter.
Create a new swatch, and name the swatch SPOT-UV (exactly like this)
- Select the colour type from the drop-down as SPOT
- Ensure the colour mode is in CMYK
- In the colour percentages make sure Cyan is at 2%, Magenta at 8%, and
Yellow at 82%, and Black at 0%. - Press OK and now you have created your Spot UV swatch.
