Design Commitment

A specialist printer with the expertise for all your creative personal and business design needs

Downey work very closely with Design agencies to not only show early on in the creative process how specialist processes might enhance a design but also to offer advice and guidance if needed to enable designers to truly realize their vision in print.

As Downey has a whole range of different printing and finishing techniques in-house, we can help to tailor a print solution to your design without bias, ensuring that the best possible result is achieved.

A quick look at our in-house production techniques:

Engraved print - perfect for the highest quality fine detail such as crests or for printing light colors onto dark colored stock, also known as ‘die stamping’. Can be used in many ways often referred to as the finest form of printing available even bank bills are printed in a similar way to achieve the embossed finish.

Foil blocking - available in many vibrant metallic colors and pigments or for printing onto more unusual materials like suede or woven linen. Often used in luxury packaging, bags and book jackets, a versatile technique.

Letterpress - the ultimate in fashion with a sunken ‘debossed’ effect into gorgeous soft but thick card – very popular for high quality personal stationery. A technique from the early forms of printing technology with an interesting history.

Embossing - to create beautiful sculpted designs without using ink at all, which are ideal for Coats of Arms and personal motifs, and embossing foil. Any embossing is only as good as the engraver who worked on the die. Downey are fortunate to have two highly skilled engravers using both machine and hand tools.

Thermography - Cost effective raised print technique, ideal for corporate stationery and business cards with its instant drying being ideal for quick deadlines. Sometimes compared with engraved print but without quite the finesse. Much improved in the past 20 years, suffered with problems of melting inks when laser printers were introduced, it is now fine as UV cured.

Duplexing - A technique largely pioneered by Downey used to create very thick cards often for stunning Invitations, sometimes using a variety of colors, with a sandwich type effect being very popular. A great technique which we use almost every day.

Laser Cutting - Introduction to Downey’s newest technique we can now cut invitations, brochure covers or just about anything else to whatever shape you would like, even complicated designs such as lace or doily effect is all possible.

We would pleased to help you and your team expand your knowledge of how these processes can work, how to best design with them in mind, and to show you some of the stunning results that can be achieved. Please call one of our team to discuss your latest projects.