Itโs the Year of the Pig this year, and these cute pigs from Kate Spade totally melt our hearts. Our kind of piggy bags ( instead of piggy bags, pun intended ) in all shades of pink. Tickled pink!
5 Best Risograph Colour Charts
design, colourCommentWe have long loved the effects of what risograph can achieve. The imperfections, the gradients, the opacity, the overlaps - love! We have used it for packaging design for our Stationery Gift Boxes for the belly bands and the box liners.
When printing with Risograph (or riso), one of the favourite things we love, apart from the process, the changing of drums (yup we have done it), making the masters, and the effects it can achieve; are the colour charts that each printer would produce.
These colour charts are useful pieces of information from the printers to show the riso colours they have in stock, and also serve as a guide for designers as a source of inspiration on how to set their gradients, line weights, font size etc. It is one of those pieces of paper that definitely tops a colour loverโs hoard list (yes us!), which Marie Kondo may not approve. Hey Marie, if you are reading, we do thank these Riso charts for their service, so, here we are keeping them in digital for now.
Here we have shared some of our favourite Riso colour charts. These colour charts to us are like a window of expression of personalities and styles of each of the print studios:
Popurri, Korea
This is a super fun animated risograph colour chart from Popurri, a risograph studio in Seoul, Korea. We love cute gifs. To make a colour chart with a combination of super quirky illustrations and animate it, this is totally rad! We particularly love the playful messages in the colour chart โI Need A Friendโ, and โDraw His New Friendโ - that makes our hearts melt, super adorbs.
InkChaCha, Hong Kong
This clear, precise and simple risograph colour chart shows brilliant examples on colours available by print studio InkChaCha in Hong Kong. This colour guide shows the different effects that can be achieved from riso printing, from swatch samples of matching colour gradients, overlapping different riso colour shades, to brush strokes effects. One of the most comprehensive and detailed colour charts we have come across that works great as a neat reference guide to Risograph printing. Yup, we have a copy of it in the studio and it is definitely one of the items on our hoard list which we will never be able to part with.
Paper Pusher Printworks, Canada
Paper Pusher Printworks is a print studio in Toronto, Canada which is the brainchild of artist / designer J P King. They have produced a really cool and one of the most delicious Risograph chart that is as yum as looking at delicious Pรขte de Fruits jelly cubes. This beautiful colour chart not only depicts the risograph colours that are available in the studio but also cleverly shows on the same axis how you can mix and match to create new colour shades, that are not offered as standard risograph shades by overprinting 2 or more colours.
P.S If you are veg lovers like us, note, the type examples in this colour chart is bursting with deliciousness.
Calverts CoOp, England
This risograph colour chart from printing cooperation Calverts CoOp in London is a colour chart for graphic design lovers. The colour chart in itself is a piece of brilliant graphic art that encompasses typography, shading, patterns, gradients. It also has a slant of Piet Mondrian in it, less cubism more graphical, with the red, blue, black and yellow colour scheme. Super cool! Apart from this overview colour chart, for each individual colours, they have taken the trouble to show each individual colour they have in stock along with the different effects that can be achieved by changing around the opacity which could be seen via this link.
PauseBread Press, China
PauseBread is a riso studio in Shanghai, China. It is both a printing studio, as well as a publisher that publishes its own work and collaborations under the name Banana Fish Books. We love the example of the vibrant colour chart that they have on display on their risograph splash page in their website. It beautifully captures the title of the page โBeauty of Risographโ and something we can resonate with. Itโs a lovely colour chart example where they have displayed the colour chart like a piano keyboard; accompanied by details to demonstrate the effects that can be achieved by risograph printing. From depicting the different opacity with the use of a manuscript; highlighting different qualities such as the granular texture that risograph can offer, along with cute graphic footnotes. A very well composed, and a very sweet colour chart - a true beaut and a lovely tune we want to tune into. (Pun intended).
Loves Me, Loves Me Not Wheel of Fortune
fun, geekery, colourCommentTo find out if someone loves us or not, we have designed a pencil where you can spin and find out. Itโs super cool to find an online option at WheelDecide which is like the wheel of fortune, you ask a question and spin. No flowers are hurt in this decision making process.
You can also customise this wheel too by changing the topic and colours in the wheel. Fun!
Emoji Tracker On Twitter
smiley, geekeryCommentIf you are a fan of emojis like us, check out this real time emoji tracker built in New York by Matthew Rothenberg that tracks different emojis that are being used in real time on Twitter.
This is so โEmojitasticโ that we had to do a screen recording of it to show how brilliant it is. Looks like on Twitterverse the Smiley Face with Tears of Joy ๐ is the most popular emoji. #Trending
Happy Paper Pigs Oink!
paperCommentThis year will be the Year of the Pig. These super sweet kawaii origami paper pigs made by origamist Hiroaki Kobayashi ๅฐๆๅผๆ are simply adorbs. Each origami piggy takes at least 7 square sheets of paper to fold and assemble together.
UK Public Transport Sorry For The Inconvenience
design, geekery, just saying, colourCommentWith many different transport providers in Britain our public commute can get disruptive. Thanks to website โSorry For The Inconvenienceโ , it keeps us up to date with transport disruptions and apologies by aggregating all the apologies broadcasted by different transport providers across the UK in one website. After all, the British is well known for apologising.
The website has a landing page designed to look like a British train ticket (cute!), and all the different transport provider represented in their respective brand colours. From pink for Hammersmith and City line on the London Underground, likewise yellow for the Circle line, to orange for Easy Jet, blue and yellow for Eurostar.
A Paper Christmas
paperCommentTea Bags Paper Tags Design
packaging, paperCommentWhether you call it tea, a cuppa, rosy lee or a builderโs brew, statistics has it that on average in the UK we drink at least 165 million cups of tea per day.
Glad artist Alexander Ross has kept an archive of paper tea bag tags - a good dunking for the eyes.