Laminating Options

Laminating is adhering a plastic film coating onto a printed sheet. Its primary purpose is to protect the printed surface of the sheet against scratching, scuffing or smudging and permanent finger marking. In addition to guarding against various types of abrasion, lamination can improve general durability, especially with exposure to the elements, and will normally increase the intensity of the ink colours it covers. Using lamination on one or both sides will protect the sheet better than any other coating.

Aviva Print can laminate your prints upto a width of 1400mm and as long as you need using various grades of laminating films from 42micron through to 150micro in gloss, matt and santex.

Micron

Lamination Film is measured in Microns. The definition of a micron is as follow:

A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer; symbol µm) is an SI unit of length equal to one millionth of a metre, or equivalently, one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron. It can be written in scientific notation as 1×10-6 m, meaning 1 / 1,000,000 m.

The symbol µm's character µ (Unicode character U+00B5; HTML µ) is the "micro sign", which should look identical to the Greek letter mu (µ) (the two may or may not look the same, depending on the font).

celloglazing film

Celloglazing is a form of thin film lamination (generally from 30 to 42micron) is available in satin, matte and gloss finishes. Gloss lamination greatly increases lustre and shine; matte and satin finishes are softer and less obvious to the eye and less reflective. Commonly used for book covers, annual report covers, cookbooks, presentation folders and of course, business cards.

Rigid film laminating

Rigid lamination (usually thicknesses from 80 to 150 microns each side) is also available in satin, matte and gloss finishes. Uses include hangtags, counter cards, menus, POP signs, banners and rulers. Rigid lamination also increases the "bulk" of the product by adding thickness and snap to the item.

Sealed-edge laminating

When laminating on two sides, you can have your job finished in one of two ways. For superior encapsulation, you can request sealed edges, where the laminate overlaps the edges, sealing the document inside two layers of plastic. This method is recommended where constant use, exposure to moisture and heavy handling are common. Examples include ID cards, menus and reference cards.

Flush-cut laminating

The other option for two-sided lamination is to order your job flush cut, with the edges trimmed to the final size of the printed piece. Many customers prefer the added feel and protection of flush-cut two-sided lamination even if the plastic edges do not prevent moisture from being absorbed into the paper fibres.