Best Risograph Color Palette

Using the right Risograph color palette for printing can constitute your desired outcome to your content.

Choosing the right color is a huge factor in any visual.

By choosing a perfect mesh of colors, it can accentuate the content of your data effectively.

While a poorly planned set of colors can be misleading, that can also do the opposite of attracting an audience.

Color also becomes an emotional indication for most projects.

For this reason, it guides your audience towards the emotion you want them to feel or the image you want them to envision that leads to your visual’s purpose.

Which can lead to certain activities you want them to engage in, like charities, academic organizations, festive events, etc.

However, we are not all born to be great designers with a keen eye for color combinations.

For those with design skills far from an expert level, color palettes are available, and it can save you from this trouble.

It can help you make quality color choices quicker!

In this article, we deliberate about:

• Color Palette
• Risograph
• The websites and their lists of free Risograph color palettes

So let’s get started!

Color Palettes

We live in a colorful world that can already be viewed digitally as it is, not just in the shades of black and white.

So, how does the digital industry adapt the broad selection of colors to their medium?

This is where color palettes come into the picture.

Color palette is also referred or related to color schemes, charts, or patterns.

A color palette is a pack of colors for use as a color reference.

It is usually used by illustrators and diverse designers who undergo the challenging task of incorporating color for effective visual communication to a specific audience.

Color is a huge factor for visual arts.

For instance, web design, branding, event posters, invitations, logo, business presentations, academic projects, campaigns, painting, drawing, fashion, and a lot more.

Choosing the proper color scheme in coordination with your theme will have an enormous impact on your design.

This color palette can also be defined as a multilayered guideline for color design.

Its framework informs the user how to use each set of colors for their preferred design.

This framework is also referred to as a color theory.

It aims for an aesthetical and psychological message that should be received by the viewer.

The Creation of Color Palette

Let us have a brief review of the color categories and know more about creating the color palette.

As mentioned above, the color categories are the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

First, the primary colors are red, blue, and yellow.

These primary colors are considered the basic colors that can create other colors with a variety of combinations.

Then, we have the secondary colors.

This results from combining any two of the primary colors, resulting in orange, violet, and green.

Finally, we have the tertiary colors that come from mixing a primary and secondary color.

Now that you have these lovely colors, you can change them and create more versions.

You can create various colors by even a slight alteration in the hue, shade, tint, tone, and temperature.

From there, you are now presented with millions of options for your color patterns.

Is it overwhelming for you?

Just don’t be afraid to mix and match your choices and see what works well with the other.

Using color palettes or charts, you can put each color side by side for a better perspective on how your visual will look with all the colors you’ve chosen together.

Risograph

In 1980, Riso Kagaku Corporation, located in Japan, manufactured Risograph.

It is described as a digital duplicator similar to an ordinary photocopier that copies an image with black ink only.

However, it is best intended for a large volume of photocopying and printing with different colors.

How different is it from colored printing like laser or inkjet printers?

Besides its capacity to print in large amounts, it is designed to be affordable by using soy ink made from vegetable soybean oil.

It uses an ink-based system that doesn’t use heat to fix the image on the paper.

Unlike water-based inks, the paper won’t absorb soy ink, so it will just sit on top to dry.

Plus, to better describe how a Risograph works, some say it is a combined process of screen printing and photocopying.

The Print Effect

Risograph can print in colors, but one layer of each color can be printed.

Unless you have a two-tone Risograph, it can print two colors at once but still with a layering system.

It is ideal for posters, flyers, zines, comics, invitations, illustration prints, and other kinds of graphic art.

Although artists have greatly appreciated the texture that risograph produces as well.

It has a perfect “imperfect” characteristic that is aesthetically pleasing rather than discomforting to the naked eye.

Its gradient (and sometimes bleeding) print effect sends off a natural touch.

When you add the vibrant colors of soy ink, then you’ll get an outstanding image.

However, its colors are quite limited depending on the supplier, but this is not a hindrance to riso printing.

By adjusting different scales for each color, you can still have so many options of beautiful colors for your art.

Patience and a keen eye are also needed for this.

Therefore, you must be cautious with how different colors topping up will look in the end.

There’s no need to worry about that, though.

There are riso swatches and color charts available from different sources like:

• Stencil.wiki
• Oddities Prints
• IDM Print Club (nyu.edu)

When you’ve already grasped the concept of risograph printing, then you’ll probably need color palettes to go with it.

As a result, it gives you a more manageable selection of color combinations for your print art.

To get you started, let’s take a look at free sources of palettes below.

Moreover, we also have listed the 10 Free Risograph Color Pallete to give you an idea of what you can use for riso printing.

Color-hex.com

Color-hex is an online source for information on colors.

Searching for the color you need is created conveniently with its search bar located at the top portion of the site.

You can also select a color through the color box beside it or using the color wheel from the drop-down options.

You’ll have access to information like the color models for triadic, monochromatic, and analogous colors.

Upon choosing a particular color, you will view the hex code and percentage for the RGB, HSL, HSV, and CMYK for that color.

The different shades, tints, even the CSS (cascading style sheet) codes are also included.

Moreover, suggestions of color palettes inclusive of the color you chose are presented.

It helps you provide different perspectives with other colors involved.

When viewing a color palette, same as previewing one color, it shows the hex and RGB codes for each color, plus the creator of that palette.

The palettes are downloadable in PDF format.

However, the hex and RGB codes won’t appear in the downloaded image.

This site does contain a Risograph color palette created by “heydam”.

It has shades of:

• a medium-light shade of pink-red (hex#ff7477)
• the medium-dark shade of cyan-blue (hex#0078bf)
• a medium-dark shade of green-cyan (hex#00a95c)
• the shade of brown (hex#ac936e)
• the color white (hex#ffffff)

Now, according from swatches from stencil.wiki:

• the pink-red shade is exactly the fluorescent orange swatch
• cyan-blue shade is somewhere near to the sea blue swatch
• the green-cyan shade might be between the emerald and turquoise swatch
• the brown shade is quite around the metallic gold swatch

We can describe the palette as diverse in a fun way but soothing to look at as well.

It’s not as bright as other colors but not as severe as dull colors.

COLOURlovers.com

Here’s another source for colors!

COLOURlovers is an online community for color ideas and inspiration.

Different creators worldwide can share their colors, palettes, patterns and interact through forums, groups, and blog articles.

This is a great site for feedback and professional tips since you can reach out to various artists internationally.

Currently, the site has more than 10 million colors, 4.7 million palettes, and almost 6 million patterns.

It goes to show that this is a great source for colors!

Upon previewing color palettes, you’ll see information like, the designer, color names, palette license, and more.

Another feature they have is their palette maker, where you can show off your artistic eye for colors.

Because of this palette maker, they now have a risograph color palette, known as Risograph Basic by designer “Roho”.

Downloadable in the format of CS, SVG, DESIGN, WPF, XAML, ASE, ACO, AI, GPL, HTML, and ZIP.

Take note that you use it under the CC-BY-NC-DA license, which mandates credit to the creator and restricts commercial use.

It contains colors, such as:

• the color yellow (hex#efd622) called “Sunflower Kisses” by COLOURlovers
• the color pink (hex#f44bbe) called “No Umbrella Sharing” by retsof
• another shade of pink (hex#ce1a49) by Roho
• a shade of green (hex#487d51) called “Masque” by bzzinglikeneon
• a blue color (hex#345469) called “AssetBlue” by andymac1

Roho, the creator, is a professional illustrator of River Bird Comics, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hence, this color palette is ideal for Riso print art since a professional comics illustrator created it, and with risograph being suitable for graphics such as comics.

The contrast in the bright and dark colors somehow balances this palette, even brilliantly using primary colors.

If you don’t want to spend too much time searching for new colors, this basic palette is already great for simple illustrations.

ColorsWall.com

ColorsWall is another great source for color palettes created by different users that has a color palette generator.

You can design your palette by using as many colors as you want.

You can adjust the RGB where you’ll automatically get the exact hex of the color you chose.

Moreover, you can label your color too!

Also, it has a feature allowing you to get the color palette of an image.

If you see an inspiring image that captures the color scheme you want, just upload that image, and a palette is instantly created for you.

How cool is that, and who wouldn’t appreciate an automated palette generator?

The site will even display a great color wall showing all the colors used or created.

Not only that, by hovering your pointer on top of each color, you will quickly view the hex code and the number of times the color was used.

Moreover, they have an updated bar graph representing the top 50 hex codes used yearly from 2018.

Such an innovative format for a website to be informative, right?

Furthermore, they have a tool where you can convert a hex code to its RGB code or vice versa.

If you are looking for a certain color and only have either the hex or RGB code, this code conversion tool will be convenient for you.

ColorsWall’s Risograph Color Palletes

Here are a few color palettes for Risographs from the site that will be very useful for riso print art.

• Neon sunset riso risography colours
• Risograph green zine art
• Risograph riso stamp nasa palette
• Run risograph illustration spray paint colors palette
• Risograph print graphic artwork palette
• Risograph design simple graphic
• Procreate screenprint illustraion risograph palette
• Risograph riso fruit portrait colors palette

When you preview a palette, you immediately see relevant information, like the date it was created and the hex and RGB codes.

The downloadable PNG image of the palettes contains the codes as well.

This will make a great hassle-free reference for artists because they won’t have to label the palettes themselves.

They show a few recommendations of other exciting color palettes that might get your attention at the bottom of the downloadable image.

There are a bunch more Risograph color palettes available.

Just freely visit the site to get a glimpse of them.

And with such a broad selection, maybe you’ll find the exact palette you need for your illustrations.

Choosing The Right Colors

If you still have some issues choosing the right color scheme, even after seeing a few beautiful palettes for risographs, maybe these simple tips might help you.

Keep in mind not to get overwhelmed with the millions of colors in the world.

You can’t have it all, no one can!

Risographs may limit color selection, but never let that stop you from trying out other selections.

If you have to change the hue, shade, tint, and other characteristics to fit your riso printing, then this is a perfect way to develop your skills as a digital artist.

Start simple by focusing on color context.

For instance, pairing a single color to contrasting colors.

In that manner, you will have a better view of how your primary color will be affected by different colors.

You’ll notice the change in color depth.

From there, using a color wheel will come in handy.

For this reason, you will be able to identify the color schemes from the initial colors you have chosen.

Analogous color schemes are adjacent or somehow related colors in a wheel.

While complementary color schemes show the opposite colors on the wheel.

On the other hand, monochromatic color schemes present the different values of one color.

And triadic color schemes consist of three colors evenly distant on the color wheel that may resemble a triangular shape.

This might look complicated for non-professionals.

However, you can learn how to play with the colors and enjoy exploring the color wheel.

Thus, always save your color schemes even if you’re in doubt.

Also, all the palettes you are drafting can be your backup for future purposes or unforeseen circumstances.

Thus, keep on enjoyably exploring your options until you’ve found the perfect palette for your artwork.

Final Thoughts

Learning about colors is fascinating from both an aesthetical and psychological perspective.

Continuously practicing color scheme creation and knowing the tools or mediums you use are incredibly significant.

Moreover, everyone has different reactions to all colors.

So, you won’t know how your audience will criticize your art unless you show it to them.

Whether you have positive feedback or misleading reactions, take it as part of the learning process in color theory and selection.

By grasping the basics of the color concept, it won’t hurt to keep on cycling progressively through that process.

Knowing the Risograph color palettes can also help you bring about the print art you’ve had in mind.

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