Risograph Services

Printing for You
We accept a limited number of custom Risograph print orders a year. We ship globally from Milwaukee, WI, USA. Everything you need to know is below, or download our free Riso PDF guide here. Email us for a quote.

Our Specialties
Posters (we illustrate and design, too!) Artist prints. Zines. Art books. Calendars. Quantities between 100–500 is our sweet spot. We require a minimum of 25 copies for any custom order and have a maximum in the thousands. We do not print wedding stationery at this time :-)

BearBear's Risograph Ink Library

• We stock 17-ish different Risograph inks
• We recommend using only 1-4 ink colors total for your project
• Colors are listed alongside approximate RGB hex codes and Pantone Uncoated equivalents below

• Black #000000 / BLACK
• Federal Blue #3D5588 / 288 U
• Blue #0078BF / 3005 U
• Mint #82D8D5 / 324 U
• Light Teal #009DA5 / 320 U
• Moss #68724D / 371 U
• Kelly Green #67B346 / 368 U
• Yellow #FFE800 / YELLOW U
• Sunflower #FFB511 / 116 U
• Orange #FF6C2F / 021 U
• Fluorescent Orange #FF7477 / 805 U
• Scarlet #F65058 / 185 U
• Fluorescent Red #FF4C65 / 812 U
• Fluorescent Pink #FF48B0 / 806 U
• Orchid #BB76CF / 2582 U
• Copper #BD6439 / 1525 U
• Flatallic Gold* #AC936E / 872 U

*Flatallic Gold has a subtle metallic sheen which shows up on dark / black paper. It looks like antique, brass-finish gold that leans slightly olive green in certain lights.

You can print multiple layers of color on top of each other to optically mix something different than what you see “out of the tube”. It’s important to know that Riso inks dry by absorption into uncoated paper. Minor smudging may occur even after the ink has dried (think: printed newspapers). Expect variations in color trueness, registration, and texture on every print. This is inherent to the medium and is part of Riso’s aesthetic charm.

What’s Risography?
Risography is an artist-approved, retro print process with a cult following. Every print is one-of-a-kind. And it’s a fraction of the cost of screen printing or letterpress, making it a perfect medium for artist books.

A Risograph printer is a digital stencil duplicator. The printer makes a stencil (called a master) from a black and white digital file. The master—a thin, plastic-coated sheet— wraps around a rotating ink cylinder that flows wet pigment through the stencil’s perforations and onto paper. One master can be used to make thousands of printed impressions of the same text or image.

Our RZ1090U Risograph printer prints one color at a time. To print a second color layer, the paper would be fed through the machine a second time with a different ink cylinder or “drum” in place. Developed as an efficient and affordable alternative to xerox printing in the 1980’s, Risography was introduced in Japan as an office-friendly technology. Artists have since adopted it as a vibrant print medium, most known for its kinship to screenprinting, specialty inks, and soft yet grainy aesthetic.

Riso is *relatively* eco-friendly, too.
According to RISO USA, Risograph printers use approximately 95% less energy than traditional photocopiers. Risos do not need to be turned on for long periods of time due to their high printing speeds. They also don’t use heat (i.e. extra energy) to affix ink to the page.

Riso ink is made of plant-based materials (usually a soy/rice bran emulsion) mixed with petroleum. The inks are free of ozone emissions, toner particles, and silica dust.

We've heard that a single Riso machine can print millions of impressions before being retired.

Print Sizes
The largest print we can make is just under 11"x17". Riso cannot print full bleed as it requires a small margin on all four sides. We print on the following standard paper sizes and then trim down to smaller “finished” sizes like 5"x7", 5.5"x8.5", 8"x10" etc.

• Tabloid 11"x17"
  Maximum printable area is approximately 10.25"x 16.25"
• Letter 8.5"x11"
  Maximum printable area is approximately 7.75"x 10.25"

Paper
We print exclusively on uncoated, recycled or vellum-finish papers. Nothing coated or glossy (it smudges right off). 28 lb. Text — 80 lb. Cover is our range of printable paper stock. The thinnest we like to print on, 28 lb. text, is meant for zine interiors and is basically the same weight as “copy paper”. The heaviest we print on is 80 lb. cover which is ideal for stationery cards, posters, or zine covers.

We source paper from French Paper Co., Neenah, Cougar Domtar, Springhill, and Mohawk, etc. Add 3–5 business days to your deadline to account for custom paper orders. 

File Prep
Send your print-ready files to heybearbear@gmail.com via WeTransfer.com as:

• Channel separated color PDFs (not separate layers), OR
• Separate grayscale PDFs. Save each PDF with the ink color name you intend it to be printed in. One PDF for each ink color is required.
• Format file names as YYYYMMDD_yourfirstname_lastname_projecttitle_inkcolor.pdf
• Send a digital mock-up of how it should look once printed! This can be a JPG, PNG, TIF, EPS, or PDF.

Important notes:

• Do not include crop/bleed/trim/registration marks! We will add ‘printer’s’ marks as part of our production service to you.
• If your image includes bleed, have at least 0.125” bleed on all sides
• Booklets, zines, and sequential art: Send us all your pages as single pages (not spreads) i.e. Front Cover - Inside Cover - Page 1 - Page 2 - and so on.
• Include an additional flattened PDF of the final look of the zine (showing all layers)
• Contact us with questions. We offer 30 minutes of free file set-up, costing $55/hr beyond that.

Binding Booklets & Zines
We provide basic booklet production. This includes scoring, folding, collating, stapling along the spine, spiral coil binding, wire-o binding, simple paper drilling. Trimming and pressing.