Expressions, RISO's customer newsletter, is full of tips, tools, and techniques to help you, the RISO customer! Click above to register for Expressions.

Ink and Ingenuity

In 1946, Noboru Hayama, the founder of RISO, hung a small signboard reading "RISO-sha" on the front door of his home in Setagaya, Tokyo, to start a small mimeograph printing company. Hayama says, "I started this business in the chaotic situation just after the World War II. I believed our nation had no future if the people had no ideals to hold onto. I decided to stick to my own ideals, whatever I did, and I chose to name the company after a word meaning ‘ideal’: “RISO."

At that time, emulsion ink for duplicators was available in Japan only by import. Concerned by the unreliability of import channels, Hayama initiated a research project that created Japan’s first emulsion ink and, ultimately, an entirely new industry.