Imperfections
It’s important to acknowledge the imperfections of Risograph when choosing it as the medium for your project - It’s part of the charm!
We’ve listed them below for your reference - once the printing process begins, it means that you agree to the following conditions and The Sandwich Club will not be responsible for any imperfections and inaccuracy in the printed outcomes. However we will process your artwork as it is to the best of our ability - please see File Setup for a more complete guide to creating your artwork.
Misregistration
Risograph prints each ink colour one at a time, which will lead to the allignment of colours shifting between each print and therefore won’t be hundred percent accurate.
Part of risograph’s unique nature, misregistrations are more welcomed by people who loves a bit of mess and charm. For certain shapes and filling colours inside artworks, one can consider adding trapping to help with registration, which is expanding the edges of overlapping graphics for a full colour fill. (File Setup)
Uneven Ink Distribution
Riso inks’ nature makes it possible to have an uneven, sometimes speckled ink performance, especially when printing large areas of colour blocks and/ or high ink intensity. This is usually more apparent when printing in darker colours.
Ink Transfer
When printing with a high ink intensity, there might be ink transfer between prints as the prints are stacked on top of each other when they exit the printer. They can potentially be ‘removed’ with an eraser if they are in a white area.
Roller Marks
When printing more than one layer or double sided prints, or if the sheets has too much ink coverage on it on previous layers, roller marks may appear especially on the top edge of your sheets. They can potentially be ‘removed’ with an eraser if they are in a white area.
Smudging
As risograph ink are made from soy oil, water and pigments. When printed, the ink adheres onto the porous surfaces of papers and never really 100% gets dry. Smudging is therefore possible.
It happens especially large areas of ink coverage, therefore we don’t recommend artwork with 100% ink intensity and/ or large areas of colour.
Paper Scratches (heavy weight paperstock)
Although Riso printers usually have no problem with paper feeding, when printing with a heavy weight paperstock, it is possible to have very small scratches on the top edge of the back of the paper.
This is because the printer would need to apply a higher pressure when taking in heavy papers. This is more possible when printing multi-colour + heavy weight.