Riso Weekend

Riso Weekend is for the people who make zines because zines are fun: art students, market-stall sellers, bands, anyone with a stack of photos and something to say. It borrows the look of a two-colour risograph print, blue ink and a red accent on warm paper with a little grain, without needing a riso printer or anything more than a colour inkjet. The cover is a full-bleed photo with the title overlaid in Space Grotesk, big and blunt. Page two is another full-bleed image, page three puts two photos side by side with a caption underneath, page four is a big photo with a caption and date, page five is a four-photo grid, page six is a photo with a journaling block for the story behind the weekend, and page seven is a single framed image before the back panel with its small photo and sign-off. The style works best with high-contrast photos.

Black-and-white images take the blue ink tint beautifully, and busy colour photos calm down under the grain. If you want the true two-colour effect, convert your photos to greyscale before uploading and let the accent colour come from the titles and rules. For the DIY feel, print on coloured copy paper: a pale cream, a light grey or a soft pink at 90 to 100 gsm all look right, and the design already assumes a paper tone so nothing needs a white background. Print a whole stack at once, fold them assembly-line style, and the cut in the middle can be done with scissors or a craft knife against a ruler. Ideal as a one-sheet handout, a gig zine or a photo project for class.

Printing this zine is the easy part: it goes on one side of a single sheet of A4 or US Letter (choose A3 or Tabloid for a zine twice the size), so any printer works and there is no double-sided alignment to get right. In the print dialog pick 100% or Actual size, never Fit to page, or the fold lines drift off the panel edges. Plain 100 to 120 gsm paper folds crisply and stops colour showing through; glossy inkjet photo paper is fine too because nothing prints on the back. Fold in half lengthways, fold in half twice more, unfold, cut the centre slit, then push the ends together and flatten. The template uses 12 photos across its 8 panels; the editor shows which slots are still empty.