Gold

Gold on a phone case is almost always a metallic foil, and a foil on a case that folds in half is a bad idea with a predictable ending. Foil sits on top of the surface rather than in it, the fold line is where the surface flexes most, and the fold line is therefore the first place it lifts.

Every gold in this range is printed. It gives up the mirror finish a foil has and gains the only property that matters here: it is still there in a year.

How a printed gold works

A convincing printed gold is not one colour. It is a warm mid-tone with a lighter value drawn where light would fall and a darker one where it would not, which is how a painter does metal and how an engraver does it. Calacatta uses that on its veining; Cipher uses it on an interlaced monogram; Full-scale marble uses it to make a vein look like it has depth.

At arm’s length it reads as metal. Close up it reads as drawing, which is more interesting than a mirror.

Where gold is used, and where it is not

Gold appears here as a drawn element inside a print, never as a whole case. A solid gold shell is a mirror with a phone behind it: it shows every fingerprint, it fights the frame rather than joining it, and at this scale it reads as plated rather than as precious.

Used as a line through marble, as an interlaced cipher, or as the warm value in a tortoiseshell, it does what gold does in a book or on a frame — it draws the eye to one place and leaves the rest alone.

With the gold titanium frame

If the phone itself is the gold finish, a gold case is tonal rather than contrasting, and that is a legitimate thing to want — it makes the whole object read as one material. If the phone is the natural finish, gold on the case becomes the only warm thing on it and behaves like jewellery.