Personalised Foil Prints: Foiled Wall Art Made in Hessle

A foiled print looks quiet in a photograph. Then you walk past it in the hallway, the light shifts, and the lettering catches. That is the appeal of it, and also why foil is hard to sell on a screen.

We foil by hand in our studio in Hessle. This guide covers the wall art side of the range rather than the tickets and scratch cards. Three prints do most of the work: the Scrabble-style family name print, the poem or vows print, and the heart connections print. All three start at £14 for an A5 print, share the same card and foil options, and none of them exists until you have told us what goes on it.

What foiled means on our prints

Foil is not printed ink. The design is laid down as a metallic film that sits on the surface of the card, so it reflects light rather than absorbing it. Up close you can see the edge of it. Held at an angle it flares. We went through the difference properly in our guide to foil versus standard prints, worth a read if you are deciding between the two finishes.

One thing to know up front: the foiled prints come in A5 and A4 only. There is no A3 on any of them, which is a limit of the process rather than an upsell.

1. The Scrabble-style family name print

This is the one that gets the second look. Your family names are set as connected letter tiles, crossword fashion, each with a traditional letter score in the corner. You give us the names, a heading (Our Family, The Duffield Family, whatever you call yourselves) and an established year or a date. It is £14 for an A5 print only, £18 framed in black or white, £19 in grey.

Two options people miss. There is a heart tile you can add, and a paw-print tile for a dog or a cat, and the order form asks whether any of the names belong to a pet. There is also an additional word field, so a surname, or simply the word Love, can sit in the grid. If you want the heart next to one particular person, write that in the additional requests box and we will put it there.

Every family is a different shape, so the layout is built around your names rather than dropped into a template. The positions will not match the example photograph, and that is the point. Have a look at the family Scrabble name print.

2. Your words, your poem, your vows

The Your Words in Foil print takes text you already have and sets it as artwork. Wedding vows are the obvious use, but the words do not have to come from a wedding. A poem someone used to recite, a reading from a christening, a few lines a parent wrote down years ago.

You give us a title, which runs vertically down the design, then the words themselves in a text box with no length limit. Names and a date are optional. The price ladder matches the Scrabble print, and it is set out in full further down.

A long set of vows wants A4. Several hundred words at A5 gets tight, and we would rather say so at proof stage than after it arrives. For song lyrics, the foiled lyric and Spotify code prints are a separate guide, and the vows print sits alongside the rest of the wedding prints.

3. The family heart connections print

A heart for each person in the family, their name alongside, a title at the top and your own wording along the bottom. It is quieter than the Scrabble print and suits a smaller wall, or the gap at the top of the stairs. Same £14 start, same sizes, same foils. The family heart connections print also works as a pair with an unfoiled name print.

Starting a hallway from scratch is covered in the family name prints guide.

Card colour and foil shade

Every foiled print starts with two decisions, and they matter more than the size does.

• Card colour. White, black or navy. White is the safe choice and shows every foil. Navy carries the warm foils, gold, copper and rose gold, well.

• Foil shade. Thirty two of them, across metallic, glitter, holographic and glass finishes, from gold and silver metallic through to copper, rose-gold holographic, teal, emerald and rainbow glitter.

One warning, which is on the product pages too because we would rather nobody found it out the hard way. Dark foils on black card do not stand out. Black glitter on black is close to invisible in a photograph and only a little better in the room. On black card, pick gold, silver, rose gold or a holographic.

Sizes, frames and what they cost

• A5 print only £14. A5 framed £18 in black or white, £19 in grey. No mount option at A5.

• A4 print only £18. A4 framed £26 in black or white, £27 in grey. A mount adds £3.

• No A3 on the foiled range.

The frames are solid wood, made in the UK, in black, white or grey. Those are the only three, so check before you order if you are matching frames you already own. The front is 1.2mm acrylic rather than glass, worth knowing if the print is going in a child's room.

How we make them

Lee and Sam make these to order in Hessle. Nothing sits in stock, because nothing exists until your names are in it. You get a proof by email before anything is foiled, and we will not press a sheet until you have approved it.

The honest bits

Personalised items are non-returnable if you simply change your mind. That is the trade-off for something made only for you, and it makes the proof the important moment in the order. Read it properly, and check the spelling of every name, including the ones you could not possibly get wrong.

We are not going to quote a turnaround here, because it moves with how many orders are in front of yours. If you have a date to hit, message us before you order and we will tell you honestly whether it is doable.

Where to start

The foiled range lives in Foiled Art, and the wider foil gifts collection adds the tickets and keepsakes. If you are buying for someone else, gifts for her and gifts for him are sorted by recipient rather than by finish. If you cannot decide on a foil, order the print only version, see it against your wall, and come back for the frame.