By Jeff Peterson, editor-in-chief, PostPress
The 2024 Sakurai Calendar, entitled “Beyond Your Imagination,” utilized screen printing and UV coating technology as well as its foil decorating technology to create a spectacular, seven pass calendar that was designed and printed by Kumazawa Screen Printing, Tokyo, Japan. The seven passes were printed, coated and foiled on a Sakurai Maestro Cylinder screen pPress, equipped with a Natgraph dryer and Sakurai LQM-105 screen foil hot foil stamper.
The design of the 2024 Sakurai Calendar was centered around the renewed Sakurai website and four symbolic designs utilized on the home page. The symbols represent the motif of “S” of Sakurai and express the technical skill, rationality and delicacy of the product. The other symbols represent innovation, society and co-creation. The direction of the design was to showcase the four symbols in dramatic metallic foil (red and silver) down the center of the B1 sheet size. The months and days of the year are decorated in gold, red and sliver foil colors down both sides of the design. The design was completed with specialty clear textures with clear UV coating applied throughout the background of the calendar.
The calendar utilized the LQM hot foiling technology to transfer a clear screen printed UV coating to the foil decorated areas. The coating works as an adhesive and reacts to the foil as it is applied. It allows large coverage of foil (demonstrated by the four symbolic designs) and finer lines (demonstrated by the days of the week for each month). In addition, the foil method provides the opportunity to lay down a raised screen coating and raised foil. It also is possible to include a textured clear as the base layer to give a foil a certain look. On the calendar, a sandy clear coating was applied as a base to a portion of the red metallic foil areas in the symbols, providing a unique contrast and different look. The foil for the calendar project was provided by Murata Kimpaku Co., Ltd.
The background was simply divided into two parts with a white background on the left side and a screen printed solid black background on the right side to highlight the foil. The final pass on the calendar laid down two separate clear UV coating patterns on both the white and black background. The two separate patterns demonstrated how two background patterns could be applied in one pass on the machine.
“We are honored that a Sakurai calendar was selected as a Gold Leaf Award winner for the fourth year,” said David Rose, vice president, Sakurai USA. “Our 2024 calendar truly showcases the overall capabilities of the Maestro press to apply both specialty coatings and inks, as well as decorative metallic foils.”