Soft Machines
£9Order
Two inks, ten thousand dots.
Dotdrum is a risograph studio and small press. We print zines, posters and books on a two-drum duplicator: Medium Blue first, Fluorescent Pink second.
The paper moves. The drums stay. Every colour is a second pass.
Medium Blue goes down first and dries for a minute; Fluorescent Pink follows on the same sheet. The order never changes, and neither do the drums.
We started with one secondhand duplicator and a box of misprinted flyers. Six years on we run short editions for artists, bands, galleries and anyone with a PDF and a deadline.
- Runs from 30 to 3,000 copies
- Soy-based inks, recycled stock as standard
- Collect in Sheffield or post anywhere in the UK
Two inks. Sixteen colours.
Blue under pink makes a violet neither drum holds. Screen each ink at 30 or 60 percent and the overlaps hand you a whole palette.
- Medium Blue
- The first pass. Dense and cool; it carries type, line and shadow.
- Fluorescent Pink
- The second pass. It glows under shop lights and is brightest on uncoated paper.
- Overprint
- Where the two meet. We proof every overlap on your paper before the run.
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One sheet, two passes.
From your file to a dry stack in five stations. Two hundred A3 posters take about forty minutes of drum time.
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1
Artwork
One page per colour, everything in black. Mark which page is blue and which is pink; we set the screens.
You · whenever it is ready
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2
Masters
The duplicator burns each page into a stencil: a thin film with thousands of pinholes, one master per ink.
Machine · 30 seconds each
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3
Blue pass
The blue drum turns at up to 130 sheets a minute, pressing ink through its master onto every sheet.
First pass · ten minutes to dry
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4
Pink pass
The same stack goes through again under the pink drum. We nudge the registration by hand until the marks meet.
Second pass · the colours appear
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5
Dry, trim, fold
A night on the rack, then the guillotine, the folder and the long-arm stapler. Packed flat in recycled card.
Ready the next working day
A small room with a loud machine.
Ines and Tom run the studio from a former bicycle workshop off Inkwell Yard. Most days one of them feeds paper while the other talks someone out of a fifth colour.
- Two-drum duplicator
- Prints both inks in one feed, up to 130 sheets a minute, A3 at most.
- Guillotine
- Cuts a 500-sheet stack square to within half a millimetre.
- Long-arm stapler
- Saddle-stitches zines up to 64 pages, one by one.
- Drying rack
- Eighty shelves, always full on a Friday.
From our own drum.
Small editions we publish ourselves, in the same two inks. When a run sells out, it stays sold out.
Learn the drum.
Evening sessions for six people at a time. You leave with an edition of your own and ink under your nails.
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First pass
Two inks, one A4 print. For anyone who has never touched a duplicator.
Book a place -
A zine in a day
Write, lay out, print and saddle-stitch sixteen pages before the light goes.
Book a place -
Halftone photographs
Turn your own photos into dots, choose a screen and print them in two inks.
Book a place -
Overprint lab
Tints, knockouts and deliberate misregistration, with a proof of every overlap.
Book a place -
Posters for the season
Design and print a run of twenty A3 posters for your own winter event.
Book a place
Price a run.
Set the job and the ticket prices it as you go. These are our real rates; the quote we send back will match.
Lately on the drum.
A page from the press log: who came in, what went through, and in which ink.
Low Tide Records
Sleeve inserts · 500 copies · blue and pink
Hollow Oak Poetry Night
Programmes · 120 copies · blue
Gallery Seven
Exhibition posters · 80 × A3 · blue and pink
Northern Soup
Zine, issue 12 · 300 copies · pink
The Cycling Kitchen
Menus · 200 copies · blue and pink
Small Hours Collective
Notebook covers · 1,000 copies · blue
Before you send a file.
What file should I send?
A PDF with one page per ink, everything in black. Make page one the blue and page two the pink; we turn greys into halftone on the machine.
Can you match a brand colour?
No, and that is the point: riso inks are fixed. We keep Medium Blue and Fluorescent Pink on the drums; tints and overprints give you sixteen more.
What are the smallest and largest runs?
Thirty copies is the smallest run worth a master; the largest we have printed is 3,000 flyers. Beyond that we will send you to an offset printer we trust.
Why does every copy look a little different?
The drum lays wet ink and the paper shifts by a hair between passes. A little misregistration is part of the look; if your design needs it tight, we run slower.
Which papers work?
Uncoated stock from 70 to 300 g, up to A3. Coated and glossy papers will not take the ink, so we keep a shelf of good uncoated ones for you to choose from.
How long does a job take?
Most runs are ready two working days after you approve the proof. Large runs and bound zines take up to five.
Bring a file. Leave with a stack.
- Studio
- Unit 4, Inkwell Yard Works
Sheffield S0 0AA - Open
- Tuesday to Friday 10–6
Saturday 11–4 - Phone
- 0114 000 0000