Graphic designer Élise Rigollet on using Risograph as a playground for texture and colour

Sometimes a designer has their fingers in so many interesting pies, that their name keeps popping up everywhere you go. Glasgow-based Élise Rigollet is one such graphic designer. She’s collaborated with Penguin Random House art director Jason Booher and as a freelancer she often helps out at Studio Elana Schlenker where, with Elana’s new studio Out Of Office, she worked on the excellent Hacking Finance, a magazine which aimed to demystify the financial tech industry and boasted some pretty hot type, graphics and illustration.

Risograph is a big part of Élise’s personal work, using the technique to experiment with colours, layering and texture. Last year she founded collective Riso Sur Mer, a group of like-minded friends from Glasgow and Paris who come together to work on Riso projects. “We’re all passionate about self-publishing and collaborate on zines and prints,” Élise tells It’s Nice That. “Our zine Mirage was our first publication together: it’s a collection of textures and photographs, Riso-printed in seven colours.” For a personal project with Jo Minor, the pair have explored smoke and steam textures using the Riso technique and Élise is currently working on a book collecting stories around gems and minerals. “It’s based on my parents’ hobby: they met in an amateur geology club, and I’ve been following them on their explorations during our family vacations to find minerals ever since I was a kid,” she explains.

In fact, there’s a trace of Riso’s psychedelic and retro feel throughout Élise’s whole portfolio, even with her client work. For an upcoming book by artist Ben Sanders (which she worked on with Studio Elana Schlenker), Élise has combined 1960s era type with Ben’s outlandish painted plant pots, and her catalogue for photographer Rosanna Lefeuvre is a fuzzy, textural exploration – a perfect fit for Rosanna’s images. “Her work has a soft and tactile quality that is super interesting to work with,” Élise says. “She weaves and prints her photographs on textile (using jacquard and hot stamping), and the blurry light and colours she chooses make it very special.” Élise’s portfolio is a great example of how personal projects can seamlessly feed into commercial work, using Riso as an experimental zone for trying out new ideas.