Stock decides more about how the finished wrap looks than the artwork does. These are the four we print most, and what each is actually good at.

Recycled kraft

Strong for its weight, cheap per sheet, and recyclable in the ordinary kerbside paper stream because there is no plastic laminate on it. On uncoated kraft with soy-based inks it is home compostable too.

It takes one or two dense spot colours beautifully and four-colour process badly, because the paper is brown and never pretends otherwise. Process on kraft loses its highlights and reads muddy. Natural white kraft gives a lighter ground at a small premium if the brown fights your palette.

Coated stock

The punchy option. A coated surface holds ink on top of the sheet rather than letting it sink in, so colours are brighter and photographic images actually work.

The trade-off is that heavy coatings can crack white along a hard fold. Ours are specified to crease rather than crack, but it is the first thing to test on any sample from any supplier: fold a corner hard and look at it.

Uncoated matte

Softer, quieter and more expensive-looking than coated, with a slightly muted colour because the ink sinks in. It is the stock luxury brands keep choosing.

It is also the correct ground for foil, for reasons that are worth understanding.

Hot foil

Not to be confused with metallic ink, which is pigment suspended in a binder and always reads slightly grey. Hot foil is a mirror-finish film stamped into the sheet under heat and pressure from a magnesium die.

It looks best on uncoated matte, because contrast is the whole effect — a mirror mark on a dead-flat ground. On gloss stock the foil has nothing to be brighter than and most of the effect disappears. Foil-blocked sheets are not kerbside recyclable, and we would rather tell you that than let you claim otherwise.