Hello, Risograph

"When totally immersed in a situation, you cannot describe it. A soldier in the midst of the fighting cannot describe the battle. But equally, if totally alien to a situation, you cannot write about it either."
—Simone de Beauvoir, "Women and Creativity"

I have heard so much about Risograph from friends of mine who working in the creative industry. They told me, "Risograph is a combination of photocopy and printing","Risograph is a digital silkscreen printing that has cut down the tedious process of making screen", "You will get the result of multiple colour printing from just a single Risograph machine, the key is the master, so when you prepare your file you need to have the idea of the screen preparation in silkscreen printing","Risograph is easy to use, fun and inspiring"...well, there are many more! 

I have never seen one nor experienced one until Speedy Grandma offered a programme, “Self-Publishing Zine with Risograph”. And that night, I went to participate with friends of mine.

Indeed.

The interchangeable colour inks and drums is like the heart of the Risograph machine. The action of pull out one and insert another gives a sense of humane to the whole printing process. 

Chris helped us to operate the machine. He placed our design on the scanner to create the master for printing. Then, he pressed the button on the machine to do some settings, and good-to-go—Risograph made the copies! Simple? Yes, it is.Compare the left and right portrait: the left one has a little surprise given by the Risograph test print, and the right one printed out from a laser printer. 

Work-in-progress of our zine. Apart from printing, we also did the page arrangement, folding, binding, cutting the print. There are plenty of creative decisions to be made for that night!

Discussion and improvisation was an ongoing activity for that night—before, in the middle, and even after the printing process—how we want the audience to experience our zine.

Finally my zine was ready to trade with the others. Looking at the copies, they were all looks the same but yet different because each copy has it own amount of ink absorption onto the page, hence the result is all chance. And I think that is the beauty of it.  Just a short and quick share here. Since the programme has extended, why not make a zine of your own and get to experience Risograph by yourself? Click here to check out more.