What do you think is the most important thing to make a custom board game attractive? Surely the custom board games should firstly be good-looking. But how to?
A box of custom board game should firstly be interesting; secondly, good making and last but not the least, being good looking. Being interesting is a primary pursuit of the custom board game designer ( each board game would go through thousands of testing and revision just to be fun). Good looking of the game entail concerted efforts of custom board game designers and board game maker ( designers offer delicate design manuscript while manufacturers of board game provide excellent printing and review). Such as Linen or Texture is mainly influenced by the board game makers. Normally custom board game printing engineers would do their best to ensure graceful and refined products. Today, we will talk about four most commonly seen surface treatments in this series and wizardry to enhance the good looking of your game.
Linen Finish
Linen Finish is one conventional board game surface treatment. It can make paper products feel and look attractive. Custom board game designers can choose linen effects for their designs of the top and bottom box, mainboard, cards and any other paper accessories. This picture shows one common linen finish effect used in board game accessories. Besides, there are Lenny, Yalian and many other patterns. Linen Finish can enhance the tactility of products. Moreover, it can in some way, reduce the abrasion of the products during their storage and use. There are defects too. With linen finish, comes the slight reduction of accuracy in printing products’ color. Therefore, if we want to highlight certain patterns, we can also make them brighter and colorful by not choosing linen finish. Normally, we cover the paper with oil or increase the brightness and improve the tactility of the products with the following techniques.
SPOT ULTRA VIOLET
Spot ultra violet uses comparatively bright, transparent and abrasion-resistant UV oil to produce bright effect on certain parts of the printed card game products. It is widely used on any mat materials custom board game designers specify to highlight anywhere that needs more attention and to make the products feel better. Patterns with UV oil applied would appear brighter, more colorful and vivid compared with surrounding parts. Therefore, we can produce special art effects for all kinds of custom board game with this technique. Notably, board game design artwork of the parts that need to be highlighted with UV oil should be made in vector and placed in a separate layer. Only in this way can the factory accurately recognize the parts needed to be UV treated without mixing them up with other auxiliary lines or other parts that need different surface treatment.
Foil Stamping
People seem to have an inborn fondness towards metal colour like gold and silvery. Therefore, foil stamping can do a good job in highlighting important elements on paper using golden or silver foil. Unlike Spot UV technique, foil stamping can be applied on numerous materials, matt or gloss, and on plastic products (PE、PP、PVC、engineering plastic-like ABSand, etc.). Foil stamping can also be used on leather and wooden materials to attach a sense of metal and increase their brightness. Most custom board game designers would use foil stamping to present key characters and patterns in their board game design, such as the characters of the name of the top, logo, people’s names and special tablets. To be mentioned, the color of the foil used is flexible until custom board game designers consult with printing engineers from board game manufacturers to have the best choice. Same as Spot UV technique, manuscript of the parts that need foil treatment should also be made in vector and placed in a separate layer.
Embossing
Embossing produces permanent concave or convex 3D effects on the surface of game components by pressing on heated metal plates to improve the visual and tactile performance of the products. Designers usually use embossing design on the package of the top or on double plug box. Embossing is much suitable in treating the characters of game name or logo. Manuscript of the parts that need to be embossed should also be made in vector and placed in a separate layer.
Linen finish, SPOT UV, Foil Stamping and Embossing are consist of the four basic surface treatments in board game manufacturing industry. Whenever your board game manuscript needs any of these special treatments should be made in vector and placed in a separate layer. Also, we should notice the production deviation. Generally, there will be a slight deviation between the actual surface treatment effect and the drawings (between 1 mm and 2 mm). It can not be avoided (the same as the “factory inaccuracy principle” mentioned above). However, custom board game designers can improve this situation in the board game design process. The original pattern should be completely covered in the surface treated draft area, and at least 1% larger than the original pattern. In this way, deviations on the surface treated area can be avoided to the greatest extent.
