GoldPrivé × Sun Studio: UV Printing for Luxury Personalisation in Dubai

GoldPrivé is a Sun Studio client, and we print for it in Dubai. GoldPrivé is a Dubai luxury maison that creates bespoke gold-finished iPhones and Samsung phones, luxury tech, corporate gifts and one-of-one commissions. At our studio in Al Quoz we print for GoldPrivé on gold-finished surfaces, leather, PU leather and other materials that suit UV printing.

Our part is the printing. GoldPrivé designs its pieces and is responsible for its gold finishing, engraving and craftsmanship. We do not plate, engrave or manufacture GoldPrivé products, and not every GoldPrivé product passes through our studio. This article explains what printing adds to a luxury piece, how we approach these materials, and how another brand can plan similar work.

GoldPrivé and the role of personalisation

GoldPrivé works from Dubai for private clients, companies and collectors in the UAE and abroad. Its collections include gold-finished phones, luxury iPhone cases, watches, executive accessories and gifts. The finishes are gold, rose gold and platinum, combined with materials such as leather, carbon fibre and mother of pearl.

Personalisation runs through the collections. GoldPrivé lists names, initials, monograms, signatures, company logos, photographs and custom artwork among the options for its cases and devices, agreed with the client for each commission. Some of those details are engraved into metal, which is GoldPrivé’s own work. Others call for colour, an image or a mark on leather or PU leather, or for colour on a gold finish. Those are the details printing is for.

What Sun Studio does for GoldPrivé

We print the designs GoldPrivé approves, at our studio in Al Quoz. UV printing lays ink directly onto the surface and cures it at once under UV light. There is no screen, plate or die to make, so one piece can carry a client’s name and the next a different monogram without any new setup.

The boundaries matter in luxury work, so we state them plainly. Printing on a gold finish is not gold plating, and we do not plate anything. The gold you see comes from the finish, not from metallic gold ink. We also do not engrave, emboss, deboss or foil. Where a GoldPrivé piece is plated or engraved, that is GoldPrivé’s work.

Printing on gold-finished surfaces

A gold-finished surface is a layer of gold, or a gold-coloured finish, over another material. It may be plating, a coating or a lacquered finish, and each one takes ink differently. Printing adds cured ink on top of that layer. It does not add gold, remove it or change the plating underneath.

Two properties of the surface decide how a print turns out:

• Brightness. UV inks are semi-transparent, so a bright metallic finish shows through the colour and changes it. Where artwork must read as true colour, we lay an opaque white base first. Where the gold should show through, we print without it. A third option is to print the background and leave the design as bare finish, so the gold itself becomes the artwork.
• Adhesion. Nothing soaks into a metallic finish, so the bond forms at the surface. Cleaning before printing, the ink and the cure decide it, and a lacquer or coating over the gold changes the result. That is why we test on the actual finish before a run.

The same thinking applies to precious metal itself. We have printed directly onto solid gold and silver commemorative pieces for Phoenix Minting Jewelry, a different client and a different surface from a gold finish. Plated stock and solid pieces are both covered on our precious metal printing page.

Printing on leather and PU leather

Leather and PU leather are the other materials we print for GoldPrivé. They look alike and print differently, which is why the first question is always which one a piece uses.

• PU leather is manufactured, so its surface is the same across a piece and from one order to the next. It is the more predictable of the two, and white ink behaves consistently under a logo.
• Genuine leather varies in grain, thickness and colour, and the ink bonds to its finish or topcoat rather than to the hide. Waxed or silicone-treated finishes are a poor ground, and a deeply textured grain can break up fine detail.
• Flex. Leather bends, and a cured ink film has limits. Rigid panels and areas away from a fold are the safer placement, and we flex the printed sample before a run.
• Before assembly. Flat panels and cut pieces print better than finished items with seams and raised edges, so we print components where the product allows it.

How each kind of leather takes UV ink, and what we check before quoting, is set out on our leather printing page.

Design options on gold finishes and leather

These are the effects we can print on gold finishes, leather and PU leather. Which of them a GoldPrivé piece uses is GoldPrivé’s design decision for each commission. The list describes what we can do, not what any one order contained.

• Full-colour artwork: photographs, illustrations and gradients printed directly onto the surface.
• Names and initials: a different name on every piece, with no new setup between them.
• Logos and monograms: brand marks, crests and company logos, placed in the same position on every piece.
• Patterns: repeats and textures across a whole panel or a defined area.
• White ink: a base that keeps colour true on dark leather and bright metal, or a white mark in its own right.
• Raised UV effects: lettering or a logo built up in layers of cured ink, so it can be felt as well as seen.

A raised UV print is not embossing. Embossing presses a shape into the material; a raised print builds ink up on top of it, in register with the colour. How much relief suits a piece depends on the surface and how the piece is handled, and on leather it belongs away from areas that bend. The method is explained in our guide to raised and 3D embossed UV printing.

How we approach a luxury piece

This is the order we work in, from the first look at the material to the packed run.

• Material assessment. We identify the surface: the kind of gold finish and whether it carries a lacquer or coating, genuine leather or PU, the grain and the colour. We also ask how the piece will be used and handled, because that decides placement.
• Artwork preparation. Vector files for logos and lettering, high-resolution files for photographs, and a decision on where white ink and any raised layer sit. Names and positions are checked against the approved list, because a printed name cannot be edited on the piece.
• Sampling. A sample on the real material, ideally a spare piece of the same finish or leather. On leather we flex it. On a metallic finish we check adhesion and how the colour reads against the metal.
• Production and checks. The approved setup is used for the run, and the pieces are checked against the approved sample before they are packed.

Why specialist printing matters for luxury brands

The gold finish, the leather and the object underneath are usually worth far more than the print, and there is often no spare piece to reprint on. That changes how printing has to be run.

For the businesses that bring us this kind of work, it helps in different ways:

• Luxury brands add a personal or branded detail without changing how the product is made, because the print goes onto the finished surface or a component.
• Gifting businesses can put a different name on every piece of a corporate or VIP order, with no setup between names.
• Designers can use colour, gradients or a photograph on materials where engraving or foil would give a single tone, and approve a sample on the real material first.

Branded and personalised gift orders are covered in more detail on our corporate gift printing page.

From the GoldPrivé collection

The images in this section are GoldPrivé’s own product images, shown with GoldPrivé’s permission. They show the brand’s materials and finishes. They do not show which parts of these products, if any, were printed by Sun Studio.

Common questions

Explore GoldPrivé’s bespoke creations

For a finished luxury piece rather than a printing partner, GoldPrivé is the place to start. Its Dubai maison creates gold-finished phones and devices, cases, watches, executive accessories and gifts, personalised for private clients and companies in the UAE and abroad.

Explore GoldPrivé’s bespoke collections →

Planning a similar project?

If you are a brand, gifting company or designer with a luxury piece to personalise, send us the item or a spare piece of the material, the artwork, the quantity and what the piece is for. We will tell you honestly what the surface will take, and print a sample on your own material before a run is agreed.

Sun Studio LLC
Al Quoz First, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Call: +971 4 346 7422
Email: info@sunstudio.ae