UV Printing
on Glass.

First-Surface — Ink on the Face You Touch

First-surface printing puts the graphic on the viewer’s side of the glass. Color sits in air, not behind a pane, so it reads with maximum punch and no glass tint between the ink and the eye. The trade is exposure: cleaning chemicals, rings, abrasion, and weather all hit the ink film. First-surface is the right call when the graphic is meant to be touched, when the reverse is already occupied (a coating, a mirror, a sealed unit you cannot reach), or when the panel is viewed from the printed side only. It is the wrong call if the same face will be scrubbed daily and you expected the glass to protect the art.

Second-Surface — Ink Behind the Glass

Second-surface printing puts ink on the reverse and views it through the glass. The pane itself becomes the wear face. That is why storefront windows, kitchen and bar splashbacks, and any printed glass panel that gets washed on a schedule usually print this way. Drytac’s window-graphics guidance is written for film, but the side-of-glass logic is the same one we use for direct UV: first surface is the exposed face; second surface is protected by the glass, and the artwork is produced mirrored so it reads correctly from the viewing side. For UV print, that also reverses the ink stack — white goes down last as a backer, not first as an underbase.

White Ink Is a Spec Decision, Not a Finish Extra

Clear glass does not give CMYK a white page to sit on. Without a white layer, a red logo is a red filter. A full white flood or spot underbase (first-surface) or white backer (second-surface) is how printed glass panels hold brand color. Partial or screened white is how you get a frosted-privacy pattern that still passes light. No white is how you get a tinted see-through graphic. Tell us which of those you want. Guessing after the file is trapped is how a privacy panel comes back looking like a sticker.

What We Will Not Do With the File

We will not silently flip a first-surface file onto the back of a storefront lite and hope the type still reads. We will not print white first on a second-surface job. And we will not treat a mirrored lite, a low-E coating, or a factory back-paint as “just glass” — those faces change which side we can print and how color will look through the pane. If the unit is already glazed, say so. The quote changes when we can only reach one face.

Send This

• Finished width, height, and thickness — and whether the glass is already cut and tempered
• Glass type if you know it: float, low-iron, tempered, laminated, mirrored, or coated / low-E
• Quantity of unique sizes and of each size
• First-surface or second-surface, and which side the viewer is on
• Whether you need solid color, translucent / frosted privacy, or a see-through tint — that decides white ink
• Indoor, covered outdoor, or full-sun exposure, plus how the face will be cleaned
• Artwork status — final file, or still in design

We Will Tell You

• Whether we print your supplied lites or specify a printable glass package
• Primer, surface side, and whether white and a clear coat belong on the spec
• Whether the panel still needs to be cut and tempered before it should reach us
• Whether a different process is the honest answer — fired ceramic frit for a fused facade graphic, vinyl for a temporary window campaign, or a different substrate entirely

We take US glass jobs through the same contact form as every other surface. Offices and phones are the Netherlands and Belgium numbers already on this site — we are not inventing a US plant or a US line for this page. If the job is a court, tile, or other sports surface rather than a glass panel, that belongs on Sports. If you are still choosing a substrate, start at the surfaces hub.

Architecture & Interiors

• Office partitions and conference-room glass with branded graphics or privacy patterns
• Splashbacks, feature walls, and balustrade glass
• Donor and recognition panels where a photographic or full-color mark belongs on the glass, not on a plate beside it
• Interior decorative lites that need a custom image without a vinyl overlay

Retail & Hospitality

• Storefront and showroom glass — second-surface when the pane will be washed from the street side
• Display cases, counter glass, and point-of-sale panels
• Backlit printed glass panels where white density and the viewing side have to be specified together

Industrial & Technical

• Equipment glass with printed scales, markings, and instructions
• Safety and wayfinding graphics on interior glass
• Control-panel and enclosure glass where the graphic has to stay put under cleaning

What This Page Is Not

• Not UV printing on plastic — that is a resin-and-surface-energy job on its own URL
• Not tumblers, drinkware, or rotary bottle work
• Not canvas, and not a homepage brand page for “poly print” / “polyprint”
• Not a ceramic-frit facade encyclopedia — we will say so if that is the process you actually need