Spot UV

Spot UV is a cost-effective technique that highlights your title, logo, or other key design elements, adding shine and sophistication to any print product—from books and packaging to board games and catalogs.

What Is Spot UV and How Does It Work?

Spot UV is a printing technique that applies a clear, glossy coating to specific areas of a printed surface—such as a logo, title, or design element—rather than covering the entire sheet. This selective shine creates contrast and draws attention to the highlighted part.

It’s typically the final step in the printing process, applied after lamination. Using a silk screen plate based on vector artwork, the coating is printed only where needed. It’s then cured instantly under ultraviolet (UV) light—hence the name “UV.” The result is a sharp, glossy effect that makes the design element visually “pop” against a matte or soft-touch background.

The Advantages of Spot UV

Spot UV is a popular technique which you can use to enhance an array of different print products. If you want to make a product really stand out from the crowd, incorporating spot UV into your design could be an ideal solution. Let’s look at several of the advantages of using spot UV on your print products.

The eye-catching gloss coating enhances your printed materials and highlights a specific element effectively.
Compared to, say, varnishing the entire surface, spot UV coating isn’t just a standout visual effect but also costs less than most other finishing techniques.
Spot UV allows you to create depth and contrast on what might otherwise be a “flat” design.
It adds perceived value to your product, making it more likely to be kept, enjoyed, and shared.
Spot UV is one of the more environmentally friendly finishing techniques, as the coating contains no toxic chemicals and your customers can safely recycle the final product at the end of its useful life.
Combining spot UV with embossing can give a result that has a powerful and eye-catching “3D” effect.

These are just a few of the advantages of spot UV coating, which make it a good choice for any print project in which you want to highlight a specific area such as your company logo, a book title or author name, or a marketing slogan, for example. We can apply spot UV to almost all materials and surfaces, although we don’t recommend using it on gloss-varnished stock because the effect would be lost.

Material and Design Considerations with Spot UV

While, as we’ve said, you can use spot UV coating on almost any printed material, it makes the strongest impact on full-color prints. The coating helps to seal the color, preventing it from fading, while also giving the areas with the coating a unique shine. Another stunning effect is using a dark, matte paper with a minimal design—such as a brand name or logo—created entirely using the spot UV technique. In this way, the design seems to shift between light and shade as the viewer looks at it from different angles.

The ideal surface to incorporate into your design if you intend to apply spot UV is a matte or soft-touch laminate It gives excellent adhesion and generates the best aesthetic result, too.

While we’ve emphasized the most common way that we use the technique—to highlight specific design elements—if you wish, you can apply the coating to the entire area, too.

Popular Applications for Spot UV

Now you know more about spot UV coating, it may be helpful to list the print projects in which our customers have used the technique successfully. Your design ideas are your own, but these may inspire you and help you make the best decision for your project.

Art and coffee-table books—The essence of the art book and the coffee-table book is a sense of culture and style. Using spot UV coating on the cover—say, for the title—will give a subtly attractive quality, especially over matte lamination, to enhance the contrast.
High-end product catalogs—catalogs which focus on luxury goods, style, and fashion items, benefit from matte lamination to enhance product photographs and resist repeated browsing. Add spot UV into the mix and you’ll create a truly standout product with strong visual appeal.
Custom printed boxes—another popular application of spot UV coating is on the outer surface of custom printed boxes. It’s a great way to highlight your logo or other branding while making it more resistant to the wear-and-tear of storage, handling and display.
Board games—board games often involve colorful artwork. Spot UV can make the artwork really “pop” while adding another layer of protection to keep the board, box, and other components looking good even after years of repeated play.

The above examples will help you understand the qualities and characteristics of spot UV coating and help you decide if it’s the right option for your specific print project.