Gold without the guilt
When the Studio requested a "Golden Horse" for the 2026 Lunar New Year, my team faced a classic engineering dilemma. Metallic papers are traditionally a nightmare for sustainability, often involving plastic laminates or heavy metal foils that render the paper unrecyclable.
For a brand built on the purity of paper, that was unconceivable. We had to find a solution that offered the visual prestige of a celebratory metal but maintained the FOLDORI brand integrity.
One-sided gold
Let’s talk shop. This is not a mass-tinted cardstock. Mass-tinting a paper with metallic particles often weakens the cellulose fibers, making our glue-free features less reliable.
Instead, we've engineered a one-sided coating process. The base is our signature high-density, acid-free cardstock. We then apply a specialized metallic finish to the A-side only.
This way, the B-side remains raw fiber, which provides better grip for our double-sided adhesive tapes. And you get an exquisite matte finish on the exterior of your sculpture, with the structural bite of high-quality paper on the interior.
Colour science beyond "Pantone"
To achieve the right resonance for the 2026 Lunar New Year, we moved away from typical yellow-gold hues toward a more sophisticated Champagne Gold with a matte finish rather than an overwhelming glossy coating. High-gloss gold looks like plastic. Matte gold communicates heritage. It captures the light rather than bouncing it away, allowing you to actually see the precision of the laser cuts. Finally, we balanced the cyan and magenta levels to ensure the gold doesn't "green" under warm home LED lighting.
Sustainability: the Green in the Gold
The most significant breakthrough in this release is the coating itself. Traditional metallic papers use a PET (plastic) film lamination. Our new Matte Gold uses a water-based, mineral-pigment coating.
Because there is no plastic film, this paper remains fully recyclable in standard European paper streams. The pigments are sourced from ethical mineral mines, ensuring that the "Prosperity" symbolized by the Golden Horse and the Dragon Sun doesn't come at an environmental cost.
Verdict
We’ve delivered a material that is technically superior, aesthetically mature, and environmentally responsible. It's the perfect debut for our 2026 Limited Edition. It’s not just a new color; it’s a new standard for what premium paper can be.
