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Daniel ➽ Letterpress Designer's avatar

Riso sounds very interesting, I've never made one before. I have been seeing lots of artists making them recently and I like what I can see of the finished images online!

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Dave Conrey's avatar

Ok, so a Riso basically works like large offset printer except one color at a time. I didn't realize that until now.

One question: With all things being normal, how many prints can you get out of one master before it starts to fail? It seems like the process is set up to favor larger runs in order to maximize costs.

But of course, who wants to print 100+ copies of a zine that might not sell out for a long stretch, along side all the other zines and prints stacking up on the shelves.

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Jen Mayer | Makeist's avatar

It was created as an office production machine so it can print a lot—efficiently and fast. But, yeah—that’s the thing—you don’t necessarily need that many copies. And if you’re paying for masters you want to maximize them. Hence, why I tie myself into knots trying to think of every possible use case before a printing session! 😅 Thankfully I’m going through back inventory of paper right now so I’m not buying new paper. I can be more cavalier with throwing some different stocks into the mix just in case I think of something to do with them later.

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Dave Conrey's avatar

I'm eager to see the project when it's done.

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Liz Mendez's avatar

It’s been an education to experience this behind the scenes. Appreciate your tenacity in the continued, creative quest.

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