The Risograph is an environmentally friendly and cost effective printer which uses soy based inks to produce unique quality outcomes. Each screen is made from banana paper and unlike litho printing only takes a single print for the screen to be fully inked and ready for printing. The Risograph is highly energy efficient and generates a minimum amount of waste. There are several different examples of risograph printers but two that Hato press use are 'the RP machines is a single drum machine, which means for each pass through the printer a single colour is produced. MZ is a two colour machine, therefore two colours can be printed in one pass.' Risograph printers also are limited to what colours they can print, generally they stock red, green, blue and black, then it varies with printers. Neon inks can be printed using risograph which is popular so many also stock a couple of neons but loads of colours can be created using overprint and tones as well as coloured ink onto different coloured stock because the inks are quite transparent.
Intrigued by my the whole process from my research I recently visited a local printers (Footprint) that specialises in risograph and environmentally friendly printing called footprint. They kindly showed me their printing facilities and how everything works, I was pretty mind blown when he opened up the front of the printer (pictured below), the whole process is amazing how the negative image is burnt into a wax sheet and ink is then pushed through the holes whilst the whole drum rotates. The printing speed is astounding, it churned out around 10 prints within around 5 seconds. I was kind of disappointed in myself that I had never heard or looked into the process sooner. The only problem is that the whole process is initially expensive (for the wax negative) but then after that it's just paying for stock, therefore it's only really cost effective when printing of large scale print jobs such as zines or publications, it's stupid to print on one of something off.
Examples
2 Press Studio
Below is an example of a simple one colour risograph, the print fully shows all that is good aesthetically from risograph printing; clear colour overlaid photographs, bright vivid colours and the texture that is created when printed especially onto newsprint. The texture is somewhat grainy and patchy, it's an aesthetic that people actually try to recreate digitally.
Nick Balloon/Victory Press
The two images below show just how amazing risograph but also the printers themselves can be. Risograph is generally used for zines and one or two coloured prints at most due to the difficulty to line up each colour layer and how offset they can be (upto 3mm each layer). But Victory press printed these three colour prints for photographer Nick Balloon, they show amazing precession and detail.
On my visit to the footprint the printer explained to me how in the past risograph had only been used to print off cheap punk zines and protest/anti government leaflets but now designers and printers are pushing the limits and boundaries of risograph, and I think this is a great example of how far it can be pushed.
From my research I have compiled a list of notable Risograph printers as opposed to bombarding my blog with even more examples.
Hato Press
Catalogue Press
Bolt Editions
Victory Press
2 Press Studio