Toppan Digital develops color version of Illumigram hologram

Toppan Digital has developed a color version of its Illumigram hologram that displays 3D text and images in response to a smartphone’s flashlight. Launched in June 2022, the Illumigram was previously only available in a single color. It was developed to combat counterfeit and imitation goods.

The new color version enables latent images using a special effect in multiple colors. Sales of the new color Illumigram start in April 2025, targeting multiple sectors that want to prevent the distribution of counterfeit and imitation goods, such as pharmaceuticals, beauty products, luxury brand goods, machinery parts, and licensed goods.

Toppan Digital aims to prevent the distribution of counterfeits and imitations by providing the market with a hologram that delivers an even stronger visual impact and anticounterfeiting performance.

Holograms use light interference to produce a three-dimensional luster effect. Their unique visual effect and difficulty of counterfeiting mean that they are widely used as a mark of a genuine product, helping to verify authenticity and combat counterfeit and imitation goods.

However, conventional holograms can sometimes be difficult to make a definitive judgment on authenticity, or special devices may be required to confirm that a product is genuine. This has prompted a need for holograms that make assessment simpler and easier. In June 2022, Toppan Digital developed Illumigram, a hologram that displays 3D text and images when exposed to a strong light source such as a smartphone’s flashlight. Illumigram is used for a wide range of products because it is more counterfeit-resistant than general holograms and allows everybody to verify authenticity with ease.

If Illumigram is exposed to a strong point-source light, such as a smartphone’s flashlight, three-dimensional text and images with depth appear in color. Compared with the existing single-color (white) version, a much wider range of latent images can be produced in colors such as blue, red, and yellow. Increasing the variations of text and images enhances counterfeit resistance and makes authenticity verification easier.

With general multicolor holograms, the colors change depending on the viewing angle, meaning they are widely used for rainbow-colored decorative purposes. However, the technical difficulty of rainbow holograms is low, making them comparatively easy to produce and unsuitable for sophisticated anticounterfeit measures.

The color version of Illumigram combines Toppan’s proprietary optical calculation and nanostructure stability control technologies to enable latent images with fixed colors that involve a high degree of technical difficulty and do not change with the viewing angle. This enhances counterfeit resistance while enabling definitive authenticity verification.

As with the single-color Illumigram, the new color version can be combined with the Toppan Group’s existing hologram manufacturing technologies. To deliver products with even higher design quality and multiple methods of confirmation, it can be fused with Secure Color, which produces pastel structural color, S-White, with which negative and positive images reverse when the hologram is turned through 90 degrees, or Twilightgram, with which latent images appear when the hologram is tilted.

The color Illumigram can also be linked to ID-NEX, a service for reading IDs with smartphones to confirm product authenticity. Thus, products are equipped with a high level of anti-counterfeit performance.

Toppan Digital will provide the color Illumigram in combination with existing hologram technologies and anticounterfeiting services, targeting industry sectors that require the prevention of counterfeit and imitation goods, such as pharmaceuticals, beauty products, luxury brands, machinery parts, and licensed goods.