Digital stencil duplicator (Risograph/Riso)

A digital stencil duplicator scans or receives a page, burns its image into a disposable master, wraps that stencil around an ink drum, and presses ink through it as paper passes underneath. Risograph, made by RISO, is the brand that became the generic nickname. Each drum carries one color, so multicolor work runs through separate drums or separate passes.

Reach for Riso when you want cheap editions with loud spot inks, visible paper texture, and the handmade energy of zines and gig flyers. Its oil-based inks, often described as soy based, stay slightly absorbed and translucent on uncoated stock, so fluorescent pink over blue can make an unexpected third color.

Gotcha: registration wanders, large solids can print unevenly, and wet heavy coverage can offset onto the next sheet. Those are properties of the process, not effects to add after the fact. Design loose traps and intentional overlap, keep ink coverage under control, and let the result look printed instead of demanding laser-printer precision.