Getting Ready to Reprint Something Long
Preparing to reprint Something Long with cut and fold lines this time—finally learning some risograph tricks that make production way smoother!
Today, I started prepping for the reprint of Something Long!
I’ve already printed this zine twice in the past, but I didn’t include cut or fold lines back then—so every time, I was folding and trimming by eye, which made production super exhausting. I wasn’t used to this kind of work and had no idea how important those little guide marks are until it was too late!
So this time, I made a test print that has only the cut and fold lines to check if they’d actually line up correctly when folded.
I tried actually folding it, but it’s not even at all!
But printing exactly in the center using a risograph is really, really hard—probably one of the trickiest things to do. Still, I knew that going in.
This pink ink version is looking pretty good though! Now I just need to make the lines thinner!
We have two riso machines at home. I tried printing on the newer one, but it shifted slightly to one side and the folds weren’t lining up evenly. Then I switched to the older machine, which has a “Test Mode” that allows for slow, careful printing—and I think it actually worked really well! The registration always comes out way cleaner, and the ink looks richer too. This might be my favorite risograph hack so far.
Tomorrow, I’m planning to finalize the print files for Something Long and hopefully move into full production!