Printing Greaseproof Paper

At It’s a Wrap our team of expert designers are always happy to answer any questions you may have when it comes to creating and printing your very own branded greaseproof. However, for those of you looking for additional printed items or maybe you'd like to understand your pantone from your CMYK, here’s a few key terms and what they mean.

Number of Colour Options: When you look to purchase your printed greaseproof paper you’ll see options of 1, 2 or full colour (sometimes called 4 colour) print options.

But what do these mean? It’s more simple than you might think!

- 1 colour means one ink colour (including black) being used on your base paper (which is white or kraft brown) so choose this option if you’re looking for something simple and understated.  

- 2 colour obviously provides you with two different ink colours. However, you can get a bit of additional range here as the inks can overlap giving you a more subtle variety.

- Full colour gives you the spectrum of the rainbow to play with so if you’re looking for 3 of more different colours for your design, this is the option to go for. Printing a bold greaseproof paper is sure to get your brand noticed! 

Colour Terms:

Have you heard of CMYK or RGB when it comes to colours and printing? Which is used for what purpose and what do they really mean?

The general rule in graphic design is that anything designed to be used on a screen is created in RGB (red, green, blue) which effectively mixes light to create the colours viewed on mediums like websites or social media pages.

Physical printed material uses ink to create the right colours - think back to mixing paints in your school art lessons! Therefore, printed items will need their artwork to use the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) format rather than RGB. Colours are created by “mixing” the four base colours and each final colour will have a unique combination.

Pantone – Founded in 1963, the company Pantone, created a universal system for understanding and matching colour. Pantone’s reference books provide details on just about any colour you can imagine and gives each colour a unique reference number (usually a 4 digit number) which tells print operators how to mix your colour; think of it as kind of recipe book!  Pantone referencing is our design team’s preferred option to ensure your custom print greaseproof paper matches your brand colours perfectly. 

Pantone and Paper Types – As well as a reference code formed of numbers, the Pantone system also adds a letter at the end such as U, C or M which relate to the three different types of paper – coated, uncoated or matte that the printing process may use. 

Why would that matter? Well, the surface of each type of paper will absorb ink differently which in turn creates a subtle difference to the finished effect. The same reference code on coated and uncoated papers for instance will look quite different so that’s worth checking before you go ahead with any printing. It’s a Wrap greaseproof paper is an uncoated paper so all Pantone colours used by us will include a U. 

Bleed - Almost all printers ask that projects include a bleed which is no reference to the red stuff! The majority of printed items are cut to size before you receive them and bleed allows a little wiggle room in the process. By slightly expanding the boundaries of your artwork beyond its final size we ensure no unsightly blank edges once your branded greaseproof sheets are cut to size. 

 Portrait/Landscape Orientation – This might sound obvious but sometimes it catches people out. Basically, if an item’s height is greater than its width it’s referred to as portrait, and vice versa for a landscape item.  

GSM: No, it’s not one of the lesser-known time zones or a type of genetic modification, GSM is actually “grams per square metre” and refers to the weight of paper. Our white greaseproof paper is 38gsm and our kraft brown greaseproof is fractionally heavier at 40gsm. To test the thickness of a sheet you should request samples - drop us a message and we’ll pop a pack in the post.

Image File Formats – At some point you’ll need to provide us with your logo for it to be added to your greaseproof paper design. For those of you who have ever been told that your image resolution is too low or been asked to supply a .eps file or some other acronym of seemingly random letters, this section is for you!  For the sake of ease all the formats listed below are formats we’ll accept logos in for creating your branded greaseproof paper design –

JPG/JPEG - one of the most popular image file formats! JPEGS significantly compresses an image making them good for sharing and storing. High resolution (300dpi and over) JPEGs can be used for print.

PDFs (Portable document format) - created to improve the ease of sharing documents pdfs are compatible across operating systems and both MAC and PC users can access them. 99.99% of the time, final artwork is created as a PDF and is the preferred format for the printing industry. If you’re sending us ready to print artwork for your branded greaseproof, rather than needing us to create something for you, this is the format to use.

AI – Short for Adobe Illustrator, these are files developed by, you guessed it… Adobe! A popular and professional graphic design tool, Adobe Illustrator is used to create vector-based designs (the crème de la crème of image creation) which allows for artwork to be easily resized without losing any detail.

EPS - often used in the creation of logos or large-scale artwork, EPS files are supported by many editing software applications.

TIFFs - the most widely supported format. Typically large files, they are used to store original images or artwork without any quality loss.

Proof – This is the document to REALLY pay attention to. Once your design is created, we’ll email you a proof which is basically an on screen example of EXACTLY how your greaseproof paper will be printed. At this point it is vital to check over the design, layout and the colours to ensure it matches your expectations. It’s also really important to check the size of your planned greaseproof so grab a ruler and double check the numbers match what you need in real life. If you notice anything that needs to be changed, we’ll send you an updated proof to agree to. We will never go ahead with producing your greaseproof until you’ve signed off the proof – even if you’ve paid for your purchase! 

Registered print vs step and repeat design – You might hear these terms when it comes to the layout of your logo across a sheet of greaseproof paper, but what do they mean? A step and repeat design will typically follow a diagonal pattern, resembling a series of stairs or “repeated steps” where your logo is repeated across the page. A registered print design is where the full page design is unique – like a full image or designs that include a menu. 

Food Safe – For those of you with food businesses this is vital information. You’ll be glad to know that not only are all our greaseproof paper options recyclable and compostable but the inks we use are vegetable based and

therefore safe to present alongside foods. For that reason we won’t print using metallic, fluorescent and pastel inks - these are not food safe and would not only cause issues with your paper, but also contaminate our lovely factory! We also have a limit for how much ink coverage we’ll add to your greaseproof. Our maximum recommendation is set at 65% coverage – any greater coverage not only slows down the drying time (delaying your delivery) but there’s also the possibility of it leaving an inky smell behind, which no one wants!

We hope you’ve found our guide informative but if you have any further questions relating to the creation of your banded greaseproof paper, please don’t hesitate to contact our team!