source for foil prints?

[SavannahLion]

ANyone know of someone who prints custom foil (not metallic) stickers in small runs... very small runs, for a reasonable price? I've been Googling around and nearly every shop that I can find that does custom printings on foils wants a minimum print run of 200+ or even 500+ and even fewer still do a limited selection of custom shapes and none do true custom shapes.

Black print on silver. Even if it's not a custom shape, I could trim to fit. I just don't want to have to do a run of 200+ stickers. Especially if it doesn't turn out very well.

Anyone know of any sources?

[shardian]

I think I saw a foil type sticker paper at Office Depot one day while looking for full-sheet sticker paper.

[polaris]

im sure this isnt news to you, but in my experience the minimums are set to cover set up costs, eg we used to get screen printed t's ,you could have 1 or a 1000 but the initial set up cost made more sense to do big production runs. you'll pay the same for less stickers if you get me as the materials and running costs of the machine will be negligible in comparison to the set up cost.

[SavannahLion]

I figured the majority of costs related to setup rather than actual runs. It's the same scenario I've been told about concerning custom PCB's. $105 for one board, but $55 each for two boards and ~$38 each for three. Doesn't take a mathmatical genius to figure out what's happening. I was kind of hoping there was something similar to the cottage market of reproduction prints we have for marquees and side art.... of course, I'm not interested in paying $200 for a sticker smaller than 3"x5"  Or like shardians suggestion of Office Depot sticker (if it's a good size) that might give me the possibility of printing it with the toner printer here at work or an ink jet.

It just occured to me to refer to scale modeling techniques and use metal foil. The card backing might be too thick and the foil might be too thin for a printer. Wouldn't hurt to look into that. 

you'll pay the same for less stickers if you get me as the materials and running costs of the machine will be negligible in comparison to the set up cost.

You lost me on this point.

[SavannahLion]

Buggers... just realized, ink jet won't work on foil. Bleh 

[crashwg]

I figured the majority of costs related to setup rather than actual runs. It's the same scenario I've been told about concerning custom PCB's. $105 for one board, but $55 each for two boards and ~$38 each for three. Doesn't take a mathmatical genius to figure out what's happening.

At my last job I had to source a phenolic spur gear for one of the lathes.  One of the companies came back with a quote of $1200 for one, or two, or three, or four...  Figgure that one out.  Why would anyone ever buy just one if you can buy one, get three free?

[Mario]

There's a product that produces foil printing on laser prints. It's sold on strips that are cut and put over laser printing. One then puts the paper back through the printer while printing a blank page. The foil sticks to the laser toner. I never tried it, so I can't comment on the quality. It's also available in many colors.

It should work on photocopies, too.

See here

Color examples

Mario

[NightGod]

you'll pay the same for less stickers if you get me as the materials and running costs of the machine will be negligible in comparison to the set up cost.

You lost me on this point.

Good old economies of scale. Here's a good example from that LasreFoil page Mario just linked:

Laserfoil, Silver Metallic
pad
25 Feet $15.95
200 Feet $39.95

[Crowquill]

There's a product that produces foil printing on laser prints. It's sold on strips that are cut and put over laser printing. One then puts the paper back through the printer while printing a blank page. The foil sticks to the laser toner. I never tried it, so I can't comment on the quality. It's also available in many colors.

It should work on photocopies, too.

I'd forgotten about that stuff! I used it for a project back in art school with very good results. We actually did it on photocopied pages. Instead of running it back through a printer we just used a brayer and a heat gun. It'd probably be more effective to use a pouch laminator at your local Kinko's. I know that in the past small sheets could be bought at craft stores. This might be hard to do with black and silver. It'd pretty much have to be white and silver.

There are laminated foil labels that you can print on, but so far the biggest I've found on the web are just mailing label size.

One more possible option if it's not going to be to big is to print on a clear label and then stick it to a foil of some sort.

[ZeroPoint]

You should try contacting your local sign-shop and ask them if they have a Gerber Edge or similar. This machine can print on a lot of different materials including standard and shiny silver at any quantity and with the shape you want. The drawback of the Edge is the max 12" print width.

Another option is a solvent inkjet that can print directly on vinyl. These usually prints only on white or transparent, but some are also capable to print on other colours like silver. Many of these machines also cuts contours.

I am using both a Gerber Edge and a 54" Solvent Inkjet for my artwork. Unfortunately I do not ship around the world. Better to contact some shop where you live.

I would also advice you to use vector artwork if you can using Adobe Illustrator or similar. Draw a closed shape (or many shapes for that matter) of your contour in some other colour and point out to the signshop that this shape should be cut.