Beyond the Visual: Why the Future of Embellishment May Be Felt Before It Is Seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tocRgEdAiNc

For years, the print embellishment conversation has been dominated by what happens when light hits the sheet.

Foil flashes. Spot UV glows. Raised varnish catches the eye from across the table. Designers, printers and brand owners have learned to speak in the language of shine, shimmer and shelf appeal. But at the latest Taktisphere Digital Embellishment Designer Meetup, Matt Redbear made the case that the industry may be looking at only half the story.

The real magic, he argued, often begins after the visual hook. It begins when someone picks up the piece and their thumb finds something unexpected.

Hosted by Kevin Abergel and sponsored by MGI, with support from PaperSpecs and Sabine Lenz, the session was titled “Beyond the Visual: Designing for the Fingertips.” It was less a technical webinar than a philosophical reset for anyone involved in premium print, packaging or digital embellishment. The message was clear: embellishment should not simply decorate a printed piece. It should change the way a person behaves with it.

Redbear, a familiar voice in the Taktisphere community and a practitioner at Elite Print Finishing, opened with a simple but surprisingly disruptive premise. People do not always fall in love with tactile print because they see it. Often, they fall in love because they feel it.

That distinction matters. In an industry where embellishment is often sold as a visual upgrade, Redbear pushed designers to think about touch as a strategic design channel of its own. Not as an afterthought. Not as a side effect. Not as “put some shiny stuff there.” But as an intentional part of the communication.

“At what point does texture become decoration instead of communication?” became the central question of the session.

It is the kind of question that sounds simple until you sit with it. Redbear was not arguing against beauty. In fact, he acknowledged that tactile finishes are almost always beautiful. But beauty alone, he suggested, is not enough. The better question is whether the finish is doing a job.

If all the varnish, foil, clear toner, metallic toner or other embellishment were stripped away, would the piece communicate differently? If the answer is no, then the embellishment may be decoration. If the answer is yes, then it has become part of the message.

That distinction, between embellishment as ornament and embellishment as meaning, is increasingly important as digital embellishment moves from novelty to discipline. The early era of “look what this machine can do” is giving way to a more mature conversation about why, where and how embellishments should be used.

Abergel noted that this shift was also visible at the recent Print Embellishment Conference in Nashville, where the word “intent” seemed to echo through presentation after presentation. Redbear agreed, saying that for him it felt like ideas the Taktisphere community had been discussing for months were suddenly being reflected back by the broader industry.

That may be the clearest sign that the category is growing up. The industry is moving beyond decoration and into psychology.

One of the most useful moments in the discussion came when Redbear asked designers to stop thinking only about how a piece looks on screen and start thinking about where human touch begins. Most people, he pointed out, do not pick up a postcard, folder, invitation or brochure from the center. They grab an edge. A corner. A lower half. A side. Usually with thumb and forefinger.

That is where the design opportunity lives.

If the first point of contact is predictable, then the tactile reward can be designed into that exact location. Not hidden randomly. Not scattered everywhere. Placed where the hand naturally goes.

Abergel connected the idea to Taktiful’s own early brochure, a roll-fold piece with raised varnish on the front and a hidden clear-varnish message on the back. The experience of holding it was not passive. People picked it up, felt something, flipped it over, discovered the hidden message and continued interacting with the piece. The format itself encouraged behavior.

This is where the conversation became especially valuable for designers and printers trying to sell embellishment as more than “premium print.” Redbear introduced the idea of “micro commitments,” a phrase that deserves to become part of the embellishment vocabulary.

The concept is straightforward: every small interaction earns the next one.

A person touches the piece. They feel a bump. Curiosity rises. They flip it over. They look closer. They hold it longer. They show someone else. None of these actions is the sale, but each one moves the person closer to engagement. In Redbear’s words, the goal is not to hard sell. The goal is to create tiny moments of curiosity that lead someone “up the stairway” toward a decision.

That is a more sophisticated way to think about ROI than simply repeating response-rate statistics, though those numbers still have their place. During the session, Abergel referenced the now widely cited embellished direct mail example from FSEA, where the embellished version produced a 31 percent lift in response rate. It is a useful proof point, but Redbear cautioned against reducing tactile print to one data point. A finish does not magically convince someone to buy. It earns attention, creates memory and increases the chances that a person will keep interacting.

The designer’s job, then, is to build the path.

This became even more interesting when the conversation turned to packaging. Redbear argued that much of the packaging world is still stuck in what he called an outdated embellishment mindset. Too many jobs still use varnish or texture based on old production habits rather than human interaction. A box may have varnish because an area is white, not because that is where a consumer will touch, open, grip or discover it.

“How many of those boxes are set up to reward touch through the thumb depending on how you grab it?” he asked.

His answer was blunt: practically none.

That observation should sting a little. Packaging is one of the most behavior-driven forms of print. A box is picked up, turned, opened, squeezed, slid, pulled and sometimes kept long after the product is gone. And yet many embellishment decisions are still made as if the package exists only as a flat front panel on a shelf.

Redbear suggested designers think more carefully about tuck flaps, opening tabs, side panels, pull ribbons and other physical interaction points. Luxury brands already understand that perception is shaped before the product is even seen. The unboxing experience begins at the first touch, not the first reveal.

One of the liveliest ideas from the session was Redbear’s “rumble strip” concept. Borrowed from the grooves on the side of a highway that jolt drivers back into awareness, the print version is a tactile interruption. It might be a row of raised dots, diagonal lines or another small texture field placed where the fingers naturally pass.

The purpose is not to overwhelm the piece. It is to create a tiny physical surprise. A moment where the thumb says, wait, what was that?

Abergel connected the idea to the Digital Embellishment Manifesto, where people picking up the piece unexpectedly encountered raised dots in the corners. The design made them “pet the print,” which may be one of the most honest descriptions of successful tactile engagement. When people keep touching a printed piece without being told to, the design is working.

The rumble strip idea also opens the door to more playful and experimental approaches. Redbear mentioned hidden messages, Morse code, braille-inspired dots, directional cues, topographic patterns and subtle varnish overlays that are not immediately visible until the viewer looks again or touches the surface.

The larger point was not that every project needs a gimmick. It was that texture can carry information, surprise and emotion.

That is a more ambitious view of embellishment than the industry has often allowed itself. Too often, tactile effects are treated as premium decoration layered on top of a finished design. Redbear’s argument is that touch should be considered much earlier. It should be part of the concept, the journey and the intended human response.

That idea was reinforced near the end of the session when Abergel shared a video from Revolution Print in Australia. The video described print not as a dying medium, but as something evolving into a rarer, bolder and more alive experience. “No screen can shimmer. No scroll can spark wonder,” the video declared.

It landed emotionally, especially because it captured the mood of the entire conversation. Digital embellishment is not just about defending print against digital media. It is about leaning into what print alone can do. A screen can show texture, but it cannot reward the thumb. It can simulate shine, but it cannot create weight, friction, surprise or that strange little spark that happens when the body discovers something before the mind has fully processed it.

That may be the real opportunity for designers.

The future of embellishment will not belong to those who simply add more foil, more varnish or more effects. It will belong to those who understand sequence. First glance. First touch. First surprise. First pause. First memory.

A good embellished piece does not just say, “Look at me.”

It says, “Pick me up.”

Then, if it is really designed well, it whispers something through the fingertips that the eyes alone never could.