Roller

Two colours at a time, on a machine that was made in 1987 and has never once printed anything exactly where we asked

Posters, zines, invitations and record sleeves, in runs of twenty-five to a thousand. What a run costs
A single object photographed flat against a bright ground.

Two passes, fluoro pink over black. The misregistration at the top edge is a quarter of a millimetre and it is the reason people come here.

Four drums, pick two

A field of hot red.

Fluoro pink

The one everybody asks for. Over black it goes brick; over yellow it goes wrong in a way people pay for.

Soft bubbles of colour against a pale ground.

Federal blue

Flat, cold and the most forgiving of the four. If it is your first time here, start with this and the black.

A haze of warm orange filling the frame.

Yellow

Almost invisible on its own and the reason the other three look like they do. Nobody orders it first and everybody orders it second.

A band of colour blurring into another.

Black

Not really black — a very dark grey that behaves itself. Every job we have ever reprinted was one that tried to use it as ink four.

The machine prints one colour at a time, so a two-colour poster goes through twice and the paper does not come back the same size it went in. Everything is slightly out. That is not a defect we are apologising for; it is the entire reason this is not a laser printer.

Send artwork as two separate layers, greyscale, at actual size. We will tell you within a day whether it will work, and we will say no to about one job in five — usually because it wants an accuracy the press cannot give it.

A wide field of graded colour.

What a run costs

A3, one colour, 50 copies£78

A3, two colours, 50 copies£124

A3, two colours, 250 copies£310

A2, two colours, 100 copies£265

Zine, 16 pages, 100 copies£340

Folding and stapling£0.30 each

Paper, oursincluded

Paper, yours£20 set-up

Quotes are per job and they hold for sixty days. There is no rush fee because there is no rush service; the press goes at the speed it goes.

Two flat colours meeting on a printed sheet.

Twenty-five is a real number

Most shops will not talk to you under five hundred. The press does not care: the set-up is the same for twenty-five as for a thousand, so small runs cost more per copy and are perfectly welcome.

The smallest job we have done was eleven invitations. The largest was nine hundred sleeves, and it took a week.

Before you send artwork

Two layers, greyscale
One file per colour, at actual size, 300dpi, no crop marks. Anything in CMYK comes straight back.
Registration
Assume half a millimetre of movement in any direction. Do not build a design that needs two colours to meet exactly, because they will not.
Solid areas
Large blocks of ink mark the sheet behind them in the stack. We will warn you; if you want it anyway, you will get it and some of them will be marked.
Timing
Two weeks from approved artwork, longer in November. Nothing is ever printed the same day and asking will not change it.
Proofs
One printed proof included, posted. Screens lie about riso ink more than about anything else in printing.
Paper
Three weights, all uncoated, all in stock. Coated paper does not take this ink and we will not order any.