Risography

Risograph printing is a stencil-based printing process that sits somewhere between screen printing and photocopying. Originally designed in the 1980s as a fast, low-cost solution for schools, churches, and offices, the machine functioned as a high-volume duplicator.

Designers and artists became drawn to its bold spot colors, matte finish, and the unpredictable charm created by layering inks one pass at a time. The medium works best for editions between 25-500 copies.

For each color in a design, the risograph creates a separate “master stencil” by burning a grayscale artwork onto a thin sheet of rice paper. That stencil wraps around a rotating ink drum filled with soy-based ink.

As paper feeds through the machine, ink is pushed through the stencil onto the page, one color at a time. To print multiple colors, the paper is fed through the machine multiple times. We have a 2-color machine, meaning 2 colors can be printed with one single pass through the riso machine.

Projects that include a textural, handmade feel, bright pops of color, and bold graphics, text, or illustration are perfect for riso printing. 11”x17” is the largest sheet size we can use, so some common formats include posters, zines, books, cards, mailers, handbills, event programs, schedules, or maps.

Things that don’t work well with riso:

• you only need one or two copies (great for 25-500 copies)

• projects with tiny details that need perfect registration or sharp resolution

• projects on glossy paper; we only use uncoated (matte) papers

• projects that must be perfect!

Because riso printing is a hands-on method of printing that involves oil-based inks, variation between prints should be expected. These characteristics are inherent to the process and not considered defects.

Roller Marks: Faint lines or tracks can appear as paper moves through the machine’s feed rollers. This usually happens when printing with 3 or more colors, and with heavy ink coverage.

Misregistration: Slight shifts in alignment between color layers. Because each color is printed separately, tiny movements in the paper can cause layers to appear slightly off, creating unexpected gaps or overlaps between colors.

Smudges: Riso ink is an oil-based formula, meaning it also takes more time to dry in comparison to digital ink-jet or laser prints. Smudging happens the most in areas with heavy ink coverage, and around areas that are touched the most (i.e. book covers, event programs).

Uneven Ink Coverage: Uneven ink texture, due to large areas of printing, or large flats of color. This happens because ink is pushed through a stencil rather than fused digitally.

We recommend setting up Spot Colors (see our Ink Colors), then using Separations and Overprint previews for the best experience. For photos and other raster-based designs, you can use Multichannel Mode in Photoshop; those channels can then easily integrate as Spot Colors in InDesign or Illustrator. For vector-based content like illustrations or text, you can also use Swatches and Multiply Mode to get an idea of how things will overlap. However, Spot Colors are the best since you don’t need to do any grayscale conversion at the end.

There are so many ways to design and separate colors, but if you’re looking for guidance, check out some of the tutorials linked below.

If you’re not interested in messing with layers or channels, SPECTROLITE is awesome (Mac only free app). It will create color separations from any full-color image or design, based on which ink colors you have chosen, and will give you usable black and white PDFs to print from.

For single prints, each color layer must be saved as a separate black-and-white file (grayscale PDFs).

• Files should be a minimum of 300 DPI

• For full bleed, include .125” of bleed, plus crop marks (no bleed marks)

• Please also provide a full-color mockup/ reference file (PDF) so we can see what your design is supposed to look like

For zines and books, please review notes on binding and creep to make sure you’ve thought through page count, margins, and whether you want to adjust for creep. If the file needs more than 30 minutes of work, we charge $65/hour for file setup time.

• Send a packaged Adobe file (InDesign, Photoshop, or Illustrator), or a link to your Canva file

• If separating colors by Spot Color/Channel, make sure your spot colors are assigned and named consistently.

• If separating colors by Layer, all content needs to be converted to grayscale, and layers should be grouped/ labeled clearly.

For single prints, each color layer must be saved as a separate black-and-white file (greyscale). For books and zines, your design file should come with a full-color reference file (PDF). Please name each file accordingly so we know which file is for which ink color.

• if sending black & white files: MyProject_BrightRed.pdf, MyProject_FluoPink.pdf

• for your full-color reference file: MyProject_Mockup or MyProject_Proof