Have you heard of the Risograph?
When I first encountered the term, I confused it with lithograph. Isn’t the prefix litho- stands for stone? Indeed lithography is a venerable printmaking technique using stone surfaces that dates back to the 18th century. It sounds heavy, academic, and ancient.
“Risograph” sounds just as serious, but the reality is much more charming. “Riso” is simply the name of the small Japanese company, Riso Kagaku Corporation, that invented the machine. Riso simply means “high ambition, dream” in Japanese. Originally designed as a high-volume photocopier for schools and offices, it has since been “reclaimed” by artists and zine-makers who fell in love with its unique aesthetic.
*Note that since the machine was born in Japan, and in Japanese, Riso is pronounced as /lee-so/. So it can’t be differentiated with lithograph if people don’t pronounce litho as /lee-to/
Recently I learnt that the founder of Riso Kagaku wanted to be a teacher but didn’t have that chance, but he still tried to realize his dream by making something that helps education. So the choice of using soy and later rice ink was originally not out of ecological concern (nowadays mostly tied with greenwashing), it’s an immediate decision for him as he wanted to use the safest material for children of any age.
More on the riso art scene
The Charm
I can’t quite remember the exact moment when I was drawn to it, but I’ve realized I feel far more at peace sitting in a room full of Riso prints, with a riso machine that constantly squeaks and trembles, than I ever do staring at things that only live inside screens.
The source of this enjoyment might be materiality. It’s in the mechanical printing marks, the texture of the uncoated paper, and the vibrant, semi-transparent inks. It’s even in the “labor” of it, as the machines require constant cleaning, ink-drum swapping, and maintenance. But that effort results in a physical work that you can hold and post on any surface in the real world.
The Magic of the Process
One of the most addictive parts of Riso is when all the colors get printed, registered beautifully on a fresh paper. No matter how many times I make prints, the moment still feels so magical. Because the ink is translucent and colors are layered one by one, you can never fully predict how a print will look until it slides out of the machine. This process opened my world to the logic of CMYK, common printing techniques, Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as the vibrant underground scene of zines and self-published books.
I recently found inspiration in how a colleague at the studio approaches her work. For her, the Riso is the perfect bridge where she can move fluidly between the digital and the analogue:
- She creates original artwork using pen or pencil (Analogue).
- She scans it, then lays it out and retouches it in Photoshop (Digital).
- She sends it back to the Riso to be birthed into the world (Analogue).
It goes from paper, to pixels, and back to paper. I’ve also seen her deliberately using scrap papers, sheets that others have already printed on, to see what unexpected textures might emerge. It’s really playful.
A Community of Machines and Makers
Riso is rarely a solitary hobby, it’s a community, in which machines are treated with affection too. In our studio, they have personalities and names: Gail and Doris. When you name a machine, you acknowledge its quirks and its “moods.”
Students use riso for wildly different purposes, from wedding invitation card, to zine, to posters, to anything that benefit from a splash of color that’s also affordable, and mass-produced quickly. It’s always fun to look around and see what other people are working on.
Bridging the Digital and the Material
My interest in the machine centers around bridging the digitality and the materiality. And risograph is a perfect setting to try the mix and interesting output that can come out of it. There are different levels where I can mix and mash digital and the physical.
On the contents level, I’m interested in using creative coding to create arts that present interesting effects when printed using risograph. While risograph will give the artwork a hand-made warmth, the digitality can open up the whole possibility of playing with randomness, motion, 3D, and mathematics. If you want to read more on this, look at my riso-related projects.
On the community level, I’m interested in bridging tech communities with artists and designers who will otherwise not come across each other. p5.js, a popular open-source creative language, backed by equally lovely, open-minded community of people, is also a hatching ground that provides libraries where people bridge their digital artwork with physical expressions, such as embroidery, zine, publication design(this is super cool), and risograph. Using the p5.riso library, people can directly create ready-to-print artwork inside the browser-based p5.js IDE. These libraries and tools become a good point of contact for the people from both worlds. The p5.riso library was created by Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne from the NYU. But many people around the globe are also enhancing and modifying the tools, such as https://hirookagikko.github.io/p5.pave2riso/docs/ (this is super super cool). I love to experiment with these tools, and would love to keep contributing and expanding this cross-disciplinary gatherings and knowledge sharing.
Resources
- stencil wiki
- spectrolite app
Studios in Toronto
- Vide Press
- Color Code
Other studios
- SVA, NY
Artists
- Natalie Andrewson
- Jasmine Floyd
Related article
- [[Riso Workshop with Digital Futures]]