Wax seals can easily add a sophisticated and elegant touch to any form of correspondence! Take your wedding invitation suites, business letters or holiday greeting cards to the next level by using a striking wax seal. Or, why not use a wax seal to elevate your brand’s packaging? While wax seals are widely used, there are some important points to consider when aiming to make the best seal designs possible.
Sealing the Deal
Seals have been around for a very long time! Ancient Mesopotamians used an embossed cylinder as a way to create a signature and to ensure the contents of a vessel. The widespread use of signet rings in wax as a means to validate or secure paper documents rose to prominence in the Middle Ages particularly among nobility and aristocracy.
Today, we want everyone to be able to get in on the fun, so we’re here to offer some guidance and tips to help you design your own wax seals! There are a lot of similarities found between working with wax seals and working with embossers, and, to an extent, also rubber stamps. Picking the appropriate level of detail will be a crucial element of a successful design.
There are typographical considerations you should be aware of, and you should also note how the fibers of the paper are much less of a factor as the wax will be the final debossed substrate. First though, let's spend a little time discussing the basics of embossing!
Core Concepts
Wax Seals are made by melting wax and then pressing a metal stamp into that wax. We offer two different product types for these: one being a set of pre-stamped seals with an adhesive back (sticker); and the other being a set that includes the stamper, a jar of wax beads and a spoon, where the customer will melt the wax beads in the spoon, pour that hot wax onto the paper, and then press the engraved stamper into the melted wax.
We have two sizes of both stampers and stickers: ¾” and 1”, which describe the diameter of the design area. However, the seal itself will spread out to around ¼” beyond this. Before we get into the specifics of designing for these, let’s focus on how the stamper and melting wax product work to better understand the process.
Please read all of the following instructions carefully before melting and using the wax. It’s important to keep the wax beads away from children and pets. Please ensure that you use an unscented tea light candle for the wax melting process, and never leave it unattended. Do not touch the wax before it has completely cooled as it may cause burns. The stamper may also become hot after repeated usage, so be sure not to touch this until it has cooled down to avoid burns.
Heat 4-6 wax beads (minimum 4 beads for 0.75”, 5 beads for 1”) in the spoon and inch or so above the flame of a candle. Do not overfill. Do not place the spoon in the flame as it may cause black smoke and cause the wax to overflow. Be careful: the spoon and wax will get VERY hot!
Once the wax has melted, quickly (but gently) pour the contents onto the flat surface in a swirling motion to make a circular puddle of hot wax.
Gently press the engraved brass stamper into the wax and wait for a few seconds. Do not press hard as this will cause the wax to become too thin on the impression area.
You’ll want to press hard enough to see the edges of the wax puddle spread out at the sides and all around the edges, but not so hard that the stamper pushes through the wax or so it makes an uneven impression. A clean, flat press will ensure that the entire design is pressing into the wax puddle.
Then, let the stamper sit for a moment. The coldness of the stamper will cool the wax around the now debossed design.
After a minute or so, gently rock the stamper out of the cooling wax puddle, and you should see your design debossed into the wax.
The wax can reproduce a remarkable amount of fine detail, but it may take some practice to get the timing right when applying the wax and then the stamper.
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Levels of Detail
In general, thicker elements with looser spacing and simpler geometry will tend to come through better in the finished wax seal. Finer, intricate details may become less distinct or may not appear at all. However, that isn’t to say intricate designs like these can never work! In the following deliberately complex design, we assumed there would be no way the intricate details would work, however, you can see that even very tiny dots and fine lines did show up.
A deliberately problematic, intricate design Etched into brass (flipped horizontally) with tooling limits Pressed into wax- the smallest details will disappear
Fine detail with good spacing can still work, but please be aware that some variation from seal to seal is expected, and that fine details may get lost depending on the skill and timing of the person applying the stamper. However, this is all part of the experience! No wax seal will be exactly like another, and this adds to the originality and uniqueness of each variation. Even if two customers order the exact same template seal design, both of their end results will still be a little different!
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Text Considerations
As you may expect, the restrictions of finer detail can become a serious issue with print and typography. Even with perfect timing and pressing, small text may still not be legible on the seal. From sample to sample, you can often expect a loss of detail particularly in intricate script typefaces. Generally, text smaller than 7pt is going to be illegible and dense, with text-heavy designs being problematic and discouraged. The use of more heavily weighted and bolder fonts will help reduce these issues.
You may also consider using abbreviations or shortening the text on your designs. Keep in mind that the final seal is either ¾” or 1” across and may have striation in the wax where details can be lost. The historic signet rings we talked about earlier would use initials and emblems to make the best impressions. Maybe instead of “Penelope and Odysseus” it would be better to use “P & O” in a larger size! Stylistically, wax seals are popularly used with graphical elements – sometimes with initials, monograms, and simplified text components.
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Variety is the spice of life
Possibly the most critical part of a successful design will be the heat, the timing of the pressing , and the skill in applying the stamper. Even with the same stamper, the same wax, and the same candle, in our testing process we saw a lot of variety in how the seals turned out. Simpler, easier designs would look good across all applications, but the more intricate designs required perfect application. So, the more straightforward you can make your design, the more consistently beautiful a customer's results will be, although the different seal attempts will of course still be slightly unique from one another.
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Practice makes perfect
We highly recommend practicing on some spare paper first to get a feel for the stamping process. Depending on the candle temperature and the steadiness of your hand, each seal can take 2-4 minutes melting the wax, 30 seconds pouring the wax, and 2-3 minutes carefully stamping the seal. Your first few attempts may take longer. You may want to order extra wax to practice with. We encourage you to get comfortable with the process before pouring hot wax onto an expensive invitation suite! Once applied, the seals are affixed very strongly and you will damage the paper if you try to remove them.
One easy way for customers to take the guesswork and time out of working with the wax is to use the peel and stick wax seal stickers instead. Please bear in mind that the same limitations and considerations apply here too, however, it’s much easier to simply order 25 or 100 seals than it would be to melt, pour and stamp each one individually!
Conclusion
Creating designs for wax seal products is an awesome opportunity! This product provides designers and customers with a range of interesting elements such as the variety in the organic swirls and pressings, the dimensional feel of the design and the limitless possibilities for expression! We implore you to consider the above points for guidance when it comes to designing for and physically stamping our wax seals. You’re going to love what you can do with these seals, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll make!