Colour blending with Foundation Press

Following on from the weekend typeface workshop at Pop Recs, I went to the home of Foundation Press in the National Glass Centre, Sunderland to join them for some riso printing.

Foundation Press are collaboratively designing printed posters for upcoming gigs and events at Pop Recs, the independent record shop / cafe / arts space / venue in Sunderland. They will print a new set of posters exploring the colour blending possibilities of risograph printers and hand-made experimental typefaces. 

Today we began making printing templates for the poster backgrounds using geometric shapes, patterns and colour blends. 

The risograph printer resembles a photocopier, and works in a similar way. A colour drum is inserted into the riso. The riso prints one colour at a time. A greyscale image is placed face down onto the photocopy bed, and the riso copier is programmed to make a master template. The image is transferred onto the roller, and then multiple copies can be made. Every time the colour is changed, the master template needs to be transferred onto the newly inserted roller. 

Riso works really well for layering different colours on top of each other, and it is possible to create interesting colour blends.

Here are some of my tests using 3 colours: teal, fluorescent pink and yellow.

We also tried some other designs.

Then began to incorporate the text that we had done at the weekend.

Some were more successful combinations than others.