Busy Beaver offers a wide variety of special finishes for your pins, and a question we get a lot when dealing with our two holographic options, is what the differences are between our sparkle and cosmic printing effects. Here's the scoop on these two light-catching, eye-popping printing options—
Sparkle, on the left, has a smaller pattern of light-reflecting dots than our cosmic buttons, pictured on the right.
The main difference between sparkle and cosmic is in the shape of the holographic pattern. Sparkle is made up of small rows of tiny dots that reflect light and are somewhat reminiscent of sequins, pixels or even fish scales. Cosmic effect, on the other hand, is made up of larger, geometric shapes and has a sort if "cracked ice" look.
Colorful artwork looks great with both sparkle and cosmic printing effects.
Both effects work really well with images that are bold and graphic. The holographic effect brightens the look of your buttons, giving them an almost jewel-like appearance. In the example above, the colorful background squares looks great with either option but sparkle is more noticeable in the white areas of the design.
Sparkle and cosmic don't always add a lot to detailed artwork. Consider whether these will add to your design or end up looking a little too busy.
When working with detailed artwork, both sparkle and cosmic can work but it's worth considering how much they'll add (or potentially detract) from your design before selecting how to print your buttons. In the beaver dam example above, not much is really added to the look of the button by adding sparkle or cosmic effect and the sparkle, especially, competes a bit with the details of the artwork in person.
For photo buttons, sparkle and cosmic can be cool additions to bright colored images because of that brightening, jeweled effects. For the beaver photos examples pictured below, the two special printing effects aren't extremely noticeable in person except for that color enhancement or if the button is viewed on an angle. Both sparkle and cosmic can be fun additions for photo buttons for celebrations, parties and other special occasions.
Sparkle (left) and Cosmic (right) printing effects enhance the color saturation of a photo button.
Ready to make sparkle or cosmic project of your own come to life? Get started in our online shop!
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