Footprint are a 'small ecologically minded printers based in Leeds', they specialise in risograph printing which was an unknown until only a couple of weeks ago, but through all this print research I've become enthused about print and everything that surrounds it so I just had to see how risograph works, I wasn't disappointed.
The whole process is mind blowing, a computer sends your design which is the same as a negative that one would use for screen printing, a laser in the risograph printer then burns the design through a sheet of wax paper that is then rolled around an ink drum that squeeze ink through burnt through wax paper. The paper fed into the printer runs straight through whilst the drum with wax and ink spins, it's really difficult to describe but it's amazingly fast.
The picture illustrates the whole drum a lot better than I can describe, so the black sheet you can wrapped around the cylinder is the wax paper screen the ink is pushed through, the black cylinder you can see on the end of the pull out is the ink cylinder that squeezes ink out. The whole thing spins.
This giant machine orders, folds and staples your publications. Its amazing how quickly it can put together a publication when I think of how long I've sat folding pages and binding them.
Below are samples we were given by footprint of examples of products they've produced and also the stock.
This is a 2 layer print they produced for a band illustrating the transparency of the inks and the colours created when they're layered on top of each other. Even though they only print in 5 colours; black, red, blue, green and pink it is possible to create different tones by layering the different colours on top of each but also from using different coloured stocks. They had this exact same print but in yellow and the pink had turned into more of a neon orang and the blue, green. The print also has a weird texture to it that's difficult to describe and the ink rubs off ever so slightly when clammy hands hold it for prolonged periods of time, but I think this all adds to the character and quirky quality of this process.
close up of the transparency and tonal qualities
This is another example of a flyer that footprint had printed that we actually found lying around college, by holding it up against the light we can see both the transparency of the ink but also the stock. Even though it's cheap and definitely looks it, one can admire the aesthetic quality that is brought with this but also the texture.
Below is another example a two colour layered print but this one illustrates the difficulty in lining up details of images, the first print only had a pattern in the background so lining up wasn't a problem, but this one clearly illustrates the problem. He was describing how the printer actually picks up the stock before putting it into the printer, therefore there can be slight movement in stock meaning the prints are often offset by up to 3mm. But again this process isn't necessarily used a lot for precise, clean prints. It's more for zines etc that use the off set to their advantage.
closer example of offset