Cover and printing techniques

Cover graphics and printing play a very important role in any project as these elements give the reader a very first impression of a book. Cover images may be printed directly on the coating, usually in four-colour offset printing, but there are also many possibilities to add a special touch with lithography or letterpress printing, or by choosing a coloured paper and overprinting text and graphics using screen printing or heat printing techniques.

Binding

After printing, the book is assembled through binding. Specific papers are available for this process, their features are high abrasion, tear resistance and lightfastness, obtained using long fibre kraft pulp, in addition to anti-scratch and anti-fingermark treatments.Hardback binding involves finishing board elements (two covers and the spine) with a sheet of paper. It is also joined by many variants: these include Bodonian binding, characterised by two stiff covers and a flexible spine.

Recommended grammage
Boards: from 500 gsm to 700 gsm
Lining: from 100 gsm to 140 gsm

Photobook

Glossy coated paper is often used for photobooks because the very compact surface prevents bleeding. Thanks to its greater printability, the printing screen dots are sharper and reproduction is better. Depending on the effect to be achieved, brighter or softer, and the type of photo, it is possible to opt for a coating which is glossy or opaque or for a natural paper. In fact, some marked and natural papers are treated to preserve brightness and sharpness, such as the Stucco series and X-Per papers.

Find out more about Fedrigoni special papers:X-Per,Stucco

Find out more

Coloured papers

One of the most frequent uses of coloured papers is for covers and for endpapers, but it is not rare to also find them on the inside pages of books. Four-colour printing on coloured paper is complex, but can be worthwhile, as long as chromatic consistency to the original image is not required. Alternatively, printing a white ink layer first with HP Indigo or screen printing for example may prevent the colour of the substrate from interfering with the image. You can achieve very interesting effects by processing the images in a creative way. For example, by printing the negative of an image with a bright covering ink on dark paper. Coloured paper is also an excellent solution to highlight the different sections of a publication, easily drawing the reader’s attention to a specific page.