A range of aluminium closures which can be customized with special metallized printing decoration to give a tactile effect, and that allows the application of any pattern with details much finer than mechanical embossing. The 3D Embossing for Salute closure was made for its range of liquors by Guala Closures. This is a standard aluminium closure which, for the first time, can be decorated with digital printing technology and then metallized with ‘sputtering’ technology. This technique has already been adopted by the spirits market and allows closures to be decorated by a thin pure metal coating in a specific colour. The different technologies are merged in one production line to achieve a completely new decoration process. Digital printing is already a major tool for personalisation in the packaging sector. This, however, is using the same technology to add high quality refinements to the closures, in a sector where this kind of differentiation is so important. The company has combined several complex processes successfully to achieve this result It is a breakthrough innovation which delivers a tactile effect to the products, experienced by the consumer every time they open a bottle. Digital printing of any complex pattern is applied to the closure layer by layer to obtain the tactile effect. The closure is then metallized in-line through the ‘sputtering’ process; any metal colour, including gold, silver and bronze, or shine and matt effects, can be achieved. Finally, the closure is covered with a special protective lacquer for UV-curing, which allows further mechanical interference such as knurling, cutting or bending. The complex metallized digital embossing of the aluminium shell makes it hard and very expensive for counterfeiters to replicate.
