LiveColor
Type: Wide-stripe compound security thread — integrating multiple ZSST proprietary technologies into a single high-precision stripe delivering colour, dynamics, 3D effects, and precision demetallisation
Overview
LiveColor is a compound premium security thread/stripe developed by Zhongchao Special Security Technology Co. Ltd (ZSST), a subsidiary of China Banknote Printing and Minting Corp (CBPM) established in 2003. ZSST is the dedicated security thread R&D and production arm of CBPM, primarily developing optical and machine-readable anti-counterfeiting threads for RMB, with an expanding international portfolio. ZSST has applied for over 220 patents including nearly 50 PCT international patents, and holds registered trademarks on its principal thread technologies.
LiveColor represents the most technically demanding tier of ZSST's thread portfolio — a wide-stripe format that integrates four of the company's distinct proprietary thread technologies into a single product. It is positioned as a showcase of ZSST's combined manufacturing capabilities rather than a single-technology feature.
Technology & Effects
LiveColor is explicitly described on the CBPM product page as an integration of four ZSST technologies:
ColorTrace™ — a dual-colour thread technology providing the base colour-shifting characteristic of the stripe.
ColorDance® — uses surface microstructures to interfere, diffract, and scatter visible light, creating dynamic or three-dimensional features with stable, distinct colours based on optical micro-nano structures. This contributes the stable colour and diffractive complexity to the compound effect.
ColorLeaps® — a high-precision micro-nano processing microstructure technology that delivers dynamic and 3D effects including floating/sinking imagery above and below the paper surface, up-and-down moving graphics and text, photochromic colour-change capability, and integration with holographic processes. This is the primary dynamic motion and depth layer of LiveColor.
Nicety® — ZSST's high-precision demetallisation technology, providing the accurate hollowing-out of metallic areas within the stripe with an extremely fine resolution that produces clearly legible clear text and precision-shaped demetallised patterns that cannot be simulated by commercial demetallisation equipment.
The result of combining these four technologies is described as being capable of presenting colour change, dynamics, three-dimensionality, and accurate precision demetallisation simultaneously within a wide-stripe format — a combination that requires extremely high precision and manufacturing difficulty in production.
Form Factors & Application
LiveColor is produced as a wide stripe — broader than standard windowed security threads — applied to both polymer and paper-based banknote substrates. The width of the stripe enables the compound effects to be presented across a larger visible area, maximising public impact and making the interplay between the different optical effects more legible and visually prominent. The precision demetallisation (Nicety®) component requires sub-micron accuracy in the metallic layer removal process, achievable only with ZSST's proprietary equipment.
Security Levels
LiveColor operates at Level 1 (public) through its immediately visible combination of colour, dynamic movement, 3D depth, and precision demetallised patterns. The compound nature of the feature — requiring four distinct manufacturing technologies to be applied in precise register within a single stripe — creates an extremely high barrier to simulation that goes substantially beyond any single-technology colour-shift or diffractive thread. Machine-readable properties can also be incorporated through ZSST's TwinCode® or AlienCode® magnetic thread technologies if required.
Notable Deployments
LiveColor was applied to both the polymer and paper-based commemorative banknotes for the Beijing Winter Olympics (2022). This simultaneous deployment across two different substrate types — polymer and cotton-paper — demonstrates the technology's substrate compatibility and its suitability for high-profile commemorative issue programmes.
- Name
- LiveColor
- Category
- Security Feature
- Effect Types
- Colour shift Diffractive
- Company
- Product Page
- View on Supplier Site
- Linked Features
- 1 security feature