Riso Printing
This publication project aimed to create a book artists and designers can use as a mini-guide to try out Risograph Printing. It explores many topics, including the history of RISO, its impact on the environment and design culture, how it works, and how to set up a design to print with a Risograph. Its A5 landscape design allows it to conveniently lie flat whilst not taking up a huge amount of desk for designers to use while working. The information and illustrations inside work together to clarify exactly what the colourful world of riso printing is, providing a convenient guide for designers curious about trying it themselves.
MY ROLE: Lead Designer.
SCOPE:
Publication Design, Illustration.
TONE:
Bold, Colourful and Imperfect - just like Riso printing.
YEAR: 2023
Major Research Insights
I wrote all the content for this book, which focused on facts and insights about Riso printing, how it works, and how to set up a document to print with a risograph. This information was turned into content for the book. As well as serve as content for the book, the following points helped to inspire the design of the publication:
Riso means ideal in Japanese.
Due to soy-based spot colours, risographs often produce brighter colours than CMYK printers.
Risographs can only print one or two colours at a time, and paper needs to go through the printer more than once to get more colours, resulting in prints that are not always perfectly aligned.
Most print houses recommend no more than 2-4 colours per risograph design; however, these colours can be overlapped to create more.
Publication Identity
Due to the number of pages, I couldn’t print the book using a risograph. Instead, I designed the colour, typography and illustrations to imitate the quirks of Riso.
Riso printing companies recommend no more than four colours per design and say to overlap inks to create more. To imitate the look, I made a colour palette using three colours as my base colours, plus black for text. I then created the colour charts above, pairing colours together at different densities to use as the colour palette for the entire book. I also played with different illustration styles, looking for something that felt hand-drawn and imperfect.
The typefaces were chosen for their geometric, rounded and bold styles, which would well reflect typography often used in Riso designs.
