Questions, answered straight

A stencil duplicator from the 1980s that never retired. The machine burns your art onto a wax master, wraps it around an ink-filled drum, and squeezes ink through the stencil onto paper, one color at a time. It is between screen printing and photocopying, and it is faster than both.

Two ways that matter. Color: riso uses fixed spot inks (fluorescent pink is the famous one), so you design around what is on the shelf, not a color picker. Registration: each color passes separately, so edges drift a little. We plan for that rather than apologize for it.

Riso is priced like a drum, not a page: a 30-copy run costs nearly what a 50 does. Under 25 copies, we will talk you into a photocopier. Maximum is about 500 per day per color, because someone has to flip those stacks.

Posters run $1.40 to $5.40 a copy depending on run length and color count. A 24-page zine in an edition of 100 is about $370 total. Everything includes setup, masters, and a file check. The full rate card lives on the services page, and the estimator below it does the arithmetic for you.

48 hours for most jobs, plus shipping. One-color runs can be same-day by agreement. Two-color needs overnight drying between passes because the ink soaks in rather than flash-cures. Rush fees exist but we would rather you planned the nap.

Yes, as halftones. Riso prints photographs as dot patterns in one or two inks, which looks strikingly good with the right ink choices and strikingly bad with the wrong ones. Bring the photo and we will show you both.

The ink is translucent, so dark stock is mostly a no, with exceptions: metallic gold on black kraft works, and we can do a white-underprint workaround that costs a pass. Ask before you design on navy.

PDF, or layered PSD or AI with one layer or spot channel per ink color. Bitmaps at 600 dpi. Everything 100% K, no CMYK builds. Full spec list is on the services page, and we check files before anything burns.

Both. If your file is 80% there, we finish it at $60 an hour with a two-hour minimum. If it is a napkin sketch, we quote a flat project fee. We are honest about which jobs need a designer who is not us.

Yes, and we encourage it. You can stand at the drum, learn the stack-flip, and personally blame the machine for any drift. Members print their own runs during studio hours.

$95 a month buys six drum hours, ink and masters at cost, and locker space for your paper. It is how most of the library's regulars produce their work. Full tiers and house rules live on the membership page.

Everywhere in the US. Posters ship rolled in tubes, zines in rigid mailers, editions flat between boards. Pickup at the studio is always free and comes with a drum tour.

Bring a zine we do not have, get shelf credit at a generous rate. We take consignment at 60/40 in the maker's favor. We reserve the right to decline anything that would need its own parental advisory shelf.

Sometimes. Private printing parties, small classes, and photo shoots work well. Email with dates; we are honest about what the space can hold, which is about fifteen people before it becomes a mosh pit.

Yes, any amount, redeemable for printing, workshops, or shop items. They are printed on site, naturally, and the ink color is random unless you tip us.

The ink is soy-oil based and the smell is honest work, not a spill. It fades in a day or two. If it never fades, you have met the newsprint, which absorbs everything and forgets nothing.

Mostly. Pigment inks like blue and black are very lightfast. Fluorescents are gorgeous and fade in direct sun like a sunburn. For things meant to last decades, we will steer your palette.

It happens to everyone, including us, including during our own open house. We restart the run from the last clean stack and you pay for what printed, not what jammed.

Yes with a grown-up, and the grown-up ends up printing. Thursday nights skew all-ages after 6:30. Workshops are sixteen and up unless marked otherwise.

Call (401) 555-0117 during open hours. The phone rings at the counter, and one of three people will pick up, two of whom will be covered in ink. That is the job.

Yes, and they are the best-value thing on the rate card: 250 cards, two colors, one stock, about $180. They will not be laminated and they will be better for it.

Partly. The shelf has eleven inks and they do not mix in the drum, so we match from what exists. Pantone matching is not a riso thing. We will show you every stock we own against your swatch and tell you honestly which one wins.

If we print it wrong, we reprint it free, no debate. If you approve a proof and then regret the choice, that is art, and art is a no-refund zone. We will still help you sell the extras in the shop.

Runs over 2,000 go to our offset partners downtown. We refer honestly, hand over files, and sometimes print the special-edition cover ourselves so the job still smells like this studio.

Yes, up to 110# cover. We test the first ten sheets for drum feeding. Some handmade papers just refuse, and we tell you before you buy 500 sheets of them.

Ground floor, 34-inch door, one step at the entrance we are fundraising to remove. Call ahead and we will meet you at the bell and sort whatever is needed. Honestly, just tell us.

No, but members buy ink at cost for studio use. For home riso owners we recommend the two suppliers we use and we will tell you which inks to avoid until you know your machine.

The building was a grain elevator annex. Its tape spliced, its conveyor belts spliced, and the name was going to be something worse. We spliced two broken machines together to print our first poster. It stuck, like everything here.