Risograph Print
Also called: Riso, Two-ink Zine, Overprint
Two inks only — fluoro pink and blue — on off-white paper, with grain, halftone dots, overprint and slightly misregistered layers.
Design keywords
Say these words to ask for this style.
Risograph Print imitates the cheap stencil duplicator loved by zine makers and art schools: every page is printed in two spot inks, fluorescent pink and medium blue, on warm uncoated paper. Fills are flat or halftone-dotted, ink is grainy, and each colour layer lands a few pixels off the other, so fills peek out from their outlines and headlines carry a pink ghost. Layouts feel cut-and-pasted: chunky quirky grotesque, mono issue numbers, rotated stickers and collage-like bento blocks.
Best for
- Indie publishers, zines and print studios
- Art schools, festivals, workshops and events
- Record labels, cafés and independent shops
- Creative newsletters and portfolios
Avoid for
- Banking, insurance and enterprise software
- Data-dense products that need many distinct colours
- Luxury brands that need polish and restraint
✓ Do
- Limit the palette to two inks (#FF48B0 pink, #0072B8 blue) plus their overprint and paper
- Offset fills 3–5px from their outlines so the layers look misregistered
- Use halftone dots (7px grid) for tints instead of opacity
- Set all type in navy blue-ink #233A8C (#14205A on pink fills); pink is for fills and ghosts
✕ Don't
- Don’t add a third bright colour or black (small status badges/danger actions and the pink-over-blue overprint #3B2A8F are the only exceptions)
- Don’t use soft blurred shadows, smooth colour gradients or glass (flat CSS gradients for dots and offsets are fine)
- Don’t register everything perfectly — a little offset is the charm
- Don’t set long body text on halftone fills
Not to be confused with
On mobile
Keep the paper grain as one static overlay, use the offset pink fill on the primary button, featured card and active tab only, and keep list rows as clean blue-ink text on paper separated by 2px rules.
Prompt builder
Paste into Claude, Cursor, v0, Lovable or any coding agent to recreate this style.