Day 32: Let's Start with Risograph
I like things that are unpredictable. I prefer things that cannot be reproduced over those that can be mass-produced. Vol. 3 of the "Seishin-Chuo Crossing" project, which I run in Nishi Ward, Kobe, featured illustrator and artist manna as a guest instructor to teach flyer design and how to communicate announcements. manna is also a technical staff member for Risograph printing in Shioya.
The Nishi Ward Office's Community Activity Support Room also has a permanent Risograph machine. That is why we asked her, who we had also commissioned to design the "Seishin-Chuo Crossing" flyer, to give a lecture on making flyers using Risograph. However, there was one troublesome problem. The Risograph in Nishi Ward only has a black ink drum. We couldn't take advantage of the Risograph's characteristic of being able to create vivid, textured prints by layering multiple colors. What should we do?
When I was racking my brain, manna suggested a collage technique. She keeps the leftover paint from her drawings on scrap paper as "scraps of color" and uses them as materials for her work. If we could only print in one color, we could cut out "scraps of color" like forest leaves or black paper with scissors, paste them to design individual patterns, and then color them after printing using stamps, colored pencils, or highlighters to create a one-of-a-kind flyer. Even children can enjoy this. By including a common design and a QR code for the important event date and time information on the base paper, it still fulfills its role as a flyer.
In other words, various people will add color to the designs that the residents have each collaged. That will overflow into the town. This is the very concept of "Seishin-Chuo Crossing": to increase the number of people who proactively enjoy the town. I really like these kinds of methods where you don't know how things will turn out, but the potential expansion seems more interesting than anything prepared in advance. I didn't know if it would go well, but I couldn't stop grinning to myself during the workshop.
manna printed 10 copies of the flyers made by the dozen or so participants on the Risograph for them to take home. I'm looking forward to seeing over 100 versions of the flyers overflowing into the town of Nishi Ward. I would like to share the flyers created this time on Instagram and other platforms. If you see a one-of-a-kind flyer in town, please post it with a hashtag to spread the word. It also became a model for utilizing the Risograph in the Community Activity Support Corner.
It was as if we were under manna's spell, and ideas for event promotion started to chain together. The continuation of the magic will surely happen from here on out. 2:00 PM. A bit late, but time for lunch. A palm-sized pot rattled as the rice finished cooking. We ate our kamameshi set meal with a pleasant sense of fulfillment.
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