What is kraft board?

The look is the reason people choose it, and the printing behaviour is the thing they are usually not told. Ink soaks into an uncoated sheet rather than sitting on top of it, and the base colour is brown rather than white. Full-colour CMYK on kraft comes out muted and shifted: light tones disappear into the board, whites are impossible without a separate opaque white ink, and photographic images look flat.

Designed for kraft rather than adapted to it, the results are excellent. One or two spot colours, solid line work, a heavy black and generous negative space all print crisply and look deliberate. Foil also works particularly well against the matte brown surface. A design conceived in full colour and then moved onto kraft to save money almost never looks right.

Structurally kraft is strong for its weight, which is why it is the standard face for corrugated and a common choice for mailers, takeaway packaging and gift boxes that have to be carried.

It also comes bleached, as a white kraft, which keeps the strength and the uncoated texture while giving a white base to print on — a useful middle path when the tactile quality is the point but the colour range is not negotiable.