What is Riso?

“Riso” means ideal in Japanese. The digital printer-duplicator, also known as the Risograph was invented in 1986 by the Japanese company RISO Kagaku Corporation. Designed as a high-volume, fast and low-cost photocopier, it was marketed to schools, churches, prisons and political parties. 

The Risograph has a very unique and distinctive aesthetic, known for its beautiful color overlays. It sits somewhere between screen printing and offset lithography. Using a stencil-based printing process and real inks,  riso-prints achieve a result similar to silkscreen, with bright, vibrant colors.

Apart from its cost-effectiveness, the Risograph also has notable ecological qualities. Inks are soy or rice-oil-based, the masters are made from banana paper and the process produces a minimal amount of waste.

The file is sent from a computer to the machine or scanned directly on the flatbed-scanner. A master is created for each color by burning an image onto a waxed sheet. This master is then wrapped around a drum, and ink is forced through the voids in the master.

The paper runs flat through the machine while the drum rotates at high speed, printing each image on the paper.