PRINTING RESEARCH
BEGINNING
COLOR
PAPER
IDEAS
PRICING
SET UP
BEGINNING
When starting, try to narrow your colours down to two or three; when mixing these three colours you can already accomplish a ‘full colour’ feel. You want to print as few layers as possible in order to get the best result. It can be hard to align each layer; some think that's the charm, others hate it. If you don’t like white lines in between colours, trap your design. This means you make each shape slightly bigger than it should be. An easy way for this when using vector images is by adding a little line in Illustrator.
Try not to hurry; the longer you wait in between layers, the neater the prints will turn out. If there is an ink stain on your paper you can erase it with a pencil eraser. Try not to make a perfect print, it’s just impossible.
The best way to learn is by doing. Start somewhere and when the printing is done reflect on how it went, what went well, and what went wrong and try to think about that working on your next design. There is always more you can do to improve the quality of your files, and setting up files takes the most time; adding strokes to trap elements and improve registration, cleaning up scanned drawings, being mindful of the limitations of the process, and managing your own expectations are all important.
The process was never designed to create art editions, so don’t expect to hit the ground running and create a perfect print on the first try.
THE PRINTED PEANUT | Riso printing ticks so many boxes. It’s quick, cheap, ethical, not labor-intensive, eco-friendly, and looks great.
Riso suits my style as I love the irregularity of the textures and how the colours overlap each other in misalignment. It makes it look more handmade even though its done by a machine.
I often limit my colour palette to one or two colours and this perfectly suits this technique for printing. I wouldn’t say I’m a specialist in the field - I just love making Riso prints. There aren't too many challenges and that’s the appeal to me. You do have to think in a clever way out how to use a limited colour plan and how not to layer too many inks on top of each other. That s a challenge I enjoy.
I make my drawing and then scan it into Photoshop. Usually, the image will have 2 layers each with a different colour. Make sure the layers are multiplied so they become ‘transparent’; that should give you an indication of how the finished print will look.
I then send my layered Photoshop file to the printers with colour instructions and what recycled paper I would like them printed on; they then return the finished product. I believe in getting the right people to make your prints for you so that you can concentrate on the designing.
NICK LIEFHEBBER | Then you send your first colour layer to the machine in black and white; the black is 100% colour and the greys just give different intensities of the colour (you can also use the copy function if you decide to create the artwork by hand). Riso ink has to dry so I dry all prints and repeat with every colour. The range of tones available to you with Risography is impressive, and a Riso screen is much finer than the mesh of silkscreen, making it easy to achieve a much more subtle range of tones. Experimenting with colour saturation is another variable, as illustrator Sam Peet discovered: "You can specify the percentage of colour you have, so if for instance, you are making a pink and green Riso print, you can choose 100% pink and 50% green, which creates a much lighter tone."
HATO PRESS | The Risograph is an environmentally friendly and cost-effective printer, which uses soy-based inks to produce unique outcomes. Each stencil (master) is made from thermal sensitive paper and unlike offset printing it only takes a single print for the screen to be fully inked and ready to print thousands of copies. The Risograph is extremely energy efficient and generates a minimal amount of waste. All our stocked papers are recycled or FSC certified.
COLOR
Color/Shift App by There There Now
Spectrolite Riso/Zine Creation App by Anemone
Color Combo Examples via Hato Press
PAPER
RISO HELL | We print almost exclusively on 11x17" paper stock, and use other standard sizes for some projects. The Riso cannot print full bleed, the maximum printable area is 10.5"x16.25" however, we suggest having a border of 1/2" on all sides for the best results. We offer in house trimming for projects requiring full bleed or a custom size. We only print on uncoated paper, Riso ink dries by absorption.
For white paper consider:
French Pop Tone, French Construction, Mohawk Opaque, Domtar Cougar White or Natural, Neenah Exact Vellum Bristol
$84.86/5000 8.5x11” sheets + $30 (UPS) = $114.86
(2-3 cents/sheet)
$100 oer 100/French Finch Opaque 70#
other site:
11x17” approx $100/1000
For colored paper consider:
French Pop Tone, Domtar Earthchoice Colors, Neenah Astrobrights
IDEAS
Collage Club via Hato Press
PRICING
JR | ($50 SET-UP FEE) + $10/MASTER COLOR + $ .20 COPY/COLOR100 COPIES OF ONE PAGE/2 COLOR = $110
($50) + $20 (2 MASTERS) + $40 (100 X 2 COLORS X $ .20)
200 COPIES OF THE ABOVE JOB = $150 BECUZ NO NEW MASTER
ODDITIES | REFERRAL PROGRAM - GIVE $20 CREDIT/GET $20 CREDIT
STUDENT DISCOUNT 15%/NON-PROFIT DISCOUNT 10%