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Hocus Bogus Publishing owns a  RISO RZ1070E digital stencil duplicator, which can print roughly A3 sized artworks or booklets on paper. The machine can be used either through a Mac/PC or through the glass plate on top of the RISO. The duplicator can be seen as combining the silkscreen printing process and a photocopier. The machine has to be loaded with printing drums, each of them has a specific color assigned to them.

Colors Available:
HD BLACK
BLUE
BRIGHT RED
FLUORESCENT PINK
SUNFLOWER YELLOW
BURGUNDY
GREEN

Inks

The inks are oil made from rice bran; are non toxic, and can be mixed with each other. Because the printing process is based on the stencil technique, the ink is put on top of the paper and thus needs some time to dry. Heavier ink coverage means more time to dry, and increases the possibility that smudges occur. There are fixation processes that can speed up drying time, but keep in mind that all RISO prints still smudge even after a long time of drying. Big surface areas of heavy ink coverage (80 to 95% opacity) should be avoided. These usually result in inconsistent ink coverage. Dot raster halftone patterns can also help when wanting to print big surfaces.

Paper

The paper used for RISO printing has to be uncoated, fairly rough paper for the best results. If the paper is coated or too smooth, the ink will not stay on the paper and stay wet for a long time. We have several papers available, mostly A3 sized ones as this is the biggest surface to print on and is the easiest size available to purchase. Paper weights between 90 and 250 grams are recommended as these yield the best results and the smallest possibility on paper jams/miss feeds.

Some technical stuff

-Design preferably in Illustrator or Indesign (or use the Spectrolite app!)
-Send a separate grayscale PDF for each ink color
-Name your files clearly, eg. yourname_artwork_inkcolour.pdf
-Your file should be A3 size (420 x 297mm)
-Leave a minimum of 10mm blank margins on each edge
-Files should be at least 300 dpi resolution
-Flatten any layers before exporting your PDF
-Please include a full color proof of your final design
-For a 100% printed opacity you should use 95% opacity in your digital file (the ink will spread out, thus turning 95 into 100 % coverage)
-Type smaller than 12pt, as well as the registration marks, can best be set to registration black (even if printing in another color). If the Riso knows it’s printing text it will preserve sharpness and ensure a higher quality print. We recommend not using Photoshop to set type, as this means it is rasterized and no longer ‘read’ by the machine as text.