Two glasses, one artwork, and only one of them survives the bar.

Why we exist

A decorated glass is decided by four things: the decoration method, where the mark sits on the wall, whether the stock is tempered or annealed, and how the glass will be washed. The last one determines the first, and it is almost never asked.

We ask it before quoting, every time.

Fired ceramic ink versus organic ink

Organic epoxy and UV-cure inks are printed and cured at low temperature. They hit bright colour, they cost less, and they wear under caustic detergent at commercial temperatures — typically somewhere between a few dozen and a few hundred cycles.

Ceramic ink is a glass frit fired in a lehr at roughly 1100 to 1250 degrees Fahrenheit. It fuses into the surface and becomes glass. It does not wash off. Service glassware wants the second; a boxed retail glass is perfectly happy with the first.

Nothing goes near the lip

We keep all decoration at least about 20mm below the drinking rim and off the interior surface entirely. The rule comes from an era when ceramic frit carried lead and cadmium, and it remains the right practice now that compliant enamels exist.

A supplier who will wrap a print over the rim for a better photograph has told you something about how they treat the parts of the job you cannot see.

Etching removes glass, so there is nothing to wear off

Sandblast and laser etching take material away rather than adding a coating, which is why an etched mark survives every wash and looks the same in a decade.

The limits are honest ones: it renders as a single frosted tone, so line art works and photographs do not; and on tempered glass the strength lives in a thin compressive surface layer, so we keep the etch shallow and say so rather than promising depth.

The shape decides the artwork

A cone distorts flat artwork, so lines curve and text arcs unless the file is compensated for that specific taper. A heavy base refracts anything decorated low on the wall. A handle interrupts the wrap and dictates the fixture. A shot glass gives you a printable area the size of a postage stamp.

So we proof on the actual glass rather than on a flat rectangle, and we will simplify a mark with you instead of shrinking it and hoping.

What we will talk you out of

An organic print on service glassware. A deep engrave on tempered stock. A full logo lockup on a shot glass. A photographic file sent to an etching machine. A Pantone chip approved as a fired colour without a fired sample.

And a wrap that runs over the rim, at any price, for any photograph.

How we work

Who we serve