FRANKIE #75 -Ashley Ronning - Risograph Press

I picked out this article from Frankie magazine as I have seen an increasing culture for risograph printing, but didn't really know what it was and why people were choosing to use it. The article discusses Helio Press, a risograph publishing project run by Ashley Ronning in Melbourne.

Ronning explains that risographs are marketed as cheap alternatives to mass photocopying, 'digital images are burned onto a paper stencil that wraps around a one-colour ink drum. Turn on the printer and the ink is pushed from the ink drum, through the stencil and onto paper.' Working with single drums, I can now see why artists seem to work with restricted colour palettes when using risograph printing. 

Ronning goes on to explain 'the colours are really vibrant, and people love the irregularities and mis-registration. Because of the digital age we live in, people like imperfect things. You can see the mark of the maker a little bit more than in regular printing'. It is clear now why risograph is a developing culture, along with analogue methods such as screen printing, for their hand made qualities. The single colour stencil approach seems similar to screen printing and as such, I can see why studios seem to be using risographs to mimic this aesthetic in a much more efficient way. 

Also discussed in the article is the facility the risograph provides to produce lovely outcomes with a hand-made aesthetic, enabling Ronning to meet the demands of clients without the labour of screen printing. She says 'I'm really keen on music, but don't really play anything, so I guess combining printing with music is my only way in'. Risograph seems like a great way producing aesthetically beautiful things in a way that is efficient and appropriate to commercial clients, perhaps useful to emerging illustrators to enable them to meet the demands of commercial briefs. 

In light of my own practice, I am concerned with analogue aesthetics and the charm achieved from mis-alignment and irregularities in printing so this could be an approach to explore if I was to work with larger runs of prints in my future professional practice.