An Introduction to Risograph Printing

Risograph is a new offering for us, but the technology has been around for almost 40 years. It is usually found in small art studios, rather than in a commercial facility like ours. Its quirky variability is not right for every job, but we love the strengths and exciting possibilities of printing with Riso and want more people to enjoy them. Riso printing has a beautiful, unique look and feel, it is cost effective and it is environmentally friendly.

What is Riso?

Risograph is a print process which has a hand-made look of traditional print but benefits from the speed, low cost and efficiency of a modern printer. Though it looks on the outside like a copy machine, the Risograph is not a copier. It is a duplicator with a process like a mimeograph or screen printer. The Riso duplicator internally creates a stencil that is laid onto a drum filled with ink. The drum then spins at high speed, forcing the ink through the stencil onto the paper.

The origins of the machine

Riso brand digital duplicators were invented by the Riso Kagaku Corporation in the mid-1980s in Tokyo, Japan. The Risograph was developed for high volume and inexpensive duplicating and is still widely used by businesses, schools and other organisations who need fairly small to medium print runs.

Creative possibilities unfold…

Riso printing has an attractive ‘rustic’type appeal. Because of its similarities to screen printing and the wide range of colors, later in the 80's, designers and artists began using Riso machines to produce some very cool spot color based works. The Riso is a conveniently small size machine and its affordable printing became an easy way for artists and designers to produce their own prints, artist books, and zines and publish work for others.

Studios have now appeared all over the world. Artists, illustrators, graphic novelists, designers, and other creatives choose Riso printing for a huge range of work such as books, zines, art prints, posters, flyers, business cards, tags, menus, postcards, greeting cards, calendars, and LP record inserts.

Unlike digital printing, Riso does not use standard ink colours like CMYK. Riso printing only uses spot colour. This means the creative possibilities with colour are enormous. Similar to screen printing, a four-color art print will require 4 individual inks and 4 unique ink stencils (masters) created for each color to create the final print product. Yet, compared to other spot color based print methods like screen printing or offset printing, Riso is generally very affordable for small runs of 100 up to 10,000.

Experiment, explore, and embrace flaws

Riso machines were designed to make office copies and not for high precision printing. Risograph can be an inaccurate and unpredictable print process. Imperfect registration, smudging, and uneven coverage are a few of the many quirks that come with this print process.

Riso ink is also not archival. The colors are limited to Riso ink spot colors and every print studio has its own unique set. If you need a perfect print, you will want to choose another print method. If you are open to embracing imperfection and experimental results, Riso could be ideal for you.

And you can help save the planet

All Riso inks are vegetable oil-based. The ink dries through absorption into uncoated paper stock rather than through heavy chemical dryers or heat. Because of this, power consumption is very low.

Each ink resides in its own portable drum that is moved into and out of the machine as needed. This eliminates ink waste and the need for toxic chemicals or washing stations between production runs. The Riso drum is simply removed from the machine, the stencil is discarded, and the drum is stored until the next use. Combined with its suitability for use with recycled papers, Riso makes an environmentally conscious and sustainable print process.

How to design and print with Riso

Designing for Riso printing is a little different and may take some getting used to. It is a great idea to look at physical examples of Riso printing. It can be hard to fully grasp Riso on a computer screen. We have swatches available to help you.

We recommend you keep to a limited colour palette. 1 to 4 ink colours per project. Many colours can be created through overprinting. For example, blue and yellow ink make green and fluorescent pink and aqua ink make a bright purple.

When creating your files think about the layers of colour, because each ink colour used is printed layer by layer like in screen printing.

Remember to expect interesting imperfections, such as:

Smudging. Risograph ink is made from a combination of environmentally friendly soy oil, water and pigment, the prints are reminiscent of newspaper ink and it is possible to smudge the ink.

Uneven coverage. Large flat areas of solid ink coverage are likely to show some slight variations, which can include pinholes and flooding.

Variable registration. Riso is like screen printing in that each ink color is layered on separately. A single piece of paper will run through our machines several times for multi-color projects and the overlap of colors can be irregular.

Tyre marks. When a paper is fed through the machine multiple times and it is heavily inked, the paper feeder rollers may leave marks on the pages' face or end sheets.

Do check with us if you need any help or advice

The Riso machine can accommodate a printable area up to 260 x 410, but a max paper size of 430mm x 310mm. We can help you create posters, flyers, books, art prints, menus, maps, folded cards, envelopes, zines, brochures, and much more.

Ink colors

Our machine uses soy-based inks in a variety of colors designed specifically for the Risograph process. The colors can be used with transparency and overprinting to create additional colors through overlapping.

We currently have 14 different ink colors to choose from. We recommend using 1, 2 or 4 ink colors for your print project.

FLUORESCENTS/SPECIALTY COLORS

 Fluorescent Pink*   PMS 806 U / C0 M78 Y0 K0

 Metallic Gold*  PMS 872 U / C29 M36 Y56 K16

  • these inks are more expensive than the rest of our colors

REGULAR COLORS

 Bright Red  PMS BRIGHT RED U / C0 M78 Y70 K0

 Orange   PMS ORANGE 021 U / C0 M69 Y79 K0

 Yellow   PMS YELLOW U C0 M5 Y93 K0

 Kelly Green  PMS 368 U C65 M2 Y90 K0

 Teal  PMS 320 U C90 M9 Y36 K1

 Blue  PMS 3005 U C88 M45 Y0 K0

 Federal Blue  PMS 288 U C85 M67 Y22 K6

 Purple  PMS 269 U C63 M68 Y28 K11

 Burgundy  PMS 235 U C41 M75 Y30 K16

 Brown  PMS 7526 U C31 M59 Y57 K30

 Black  PMS BLACK U C55 M47 Y49 K39

    White    WHITE C0 M0 Y0 K0