SVA Summer Course with Panayoitis Terzis
Like many riso owners, I am self-taught. Got my machine, went into Google and Youtube, downloaded printing guides from other studios and read the physical manual. After trial & error I got the hang of it, and by teaching how to use the machine I have also learnt on the go - creating step-by-step guides; testing what I wanted to teach and so on.
But now was the time to invest in developing my skills further! I had been looking for a way to push my riso knowledge to the next level. My original plan was to do a road-trip and visit a few studio’s this Spring, which got of course cancelled due to COVID… BUT this same pandemic brought interesting opportunities, such as online courses of schools that had once been out of my reach. In this case it was the School of Visual Arts is New York and its Riso Lab. I didn’t have to think twice when I saw the course, so I booked my spot.
(Maybe I should have checked the time difference haha! I had to stay awake from 12:00am to 3:00am during the live sessions! Haha! But it was totally worth it!)
RisoLab Remote Series: Zines and Small Publishing
I chose this specific riso course because I want to do more zines within Riso Pop and I was interested in Panayotis’ (Pan) riso experiece.
Zines are small self-published books, that can be on any theme and size. I think it’s a great product to make and opens an opportunity for people to tell their thoughts, stories etc. in an affordable way.
The course started with an introduction to the world of Zines and riso printing in general. During the next weeks we looked at 3 printing techniques:
Spot colours/ multi-color printing
Duotone & Posterization
CMYK & faux CMYK
(click on images to expand)
Zine Making
Within the course we touched on two types of zines the folded zine ( which was a team exercise) and then our final project: a 16 page zine. Sadly due to time constraints, and maybe a too ambitious agenda, we were only able to share sketches and thoughts on the final zine.
My thoughts about the course
What can I say… the nerd inside me was very happy, it was exactly what I was looking for. The fact that we got feedback on our work and could ask questions directly to Pan about everything riso related was extremely nice and refreshing! And even though it was an online platform, I do feel there was a nice community that came out of this course (the team assignment helped for sure!).
Some of the techniques were not new to me, but it was nice to see how Pan approached them, since there are many ways to prep your files for riso. There were of course new techniques that I still need to keep experimenting with, but looking at other’s results was truly inspiring!
Pan’s personal story around riso was also a highlight; from his incredible book works to the ways he has approached the technique. I also appreciated his thoughts about teaching at RisoLab, which I appreciate and hope to take with me into Riso Pop.
To wrap up, I’m grateful for this opportunity and will be definitively be taking my new knowledge into new projects and upcoming workshops at the studio.
I recommend you to look at the SVA remote series if you want to do a deep dive into riso!
If you want to dip your toes into riso printing first, remember I offer a monthly Taster Workshop & in November I will be hosting a 2 day workshop where you will learn about riso printing, book making and book binding!
