As graphic designers aim to simplify and streamline, it’s ironic that our equipment and software is so often bulky, fussy and prone to misbehaving — superfluous buttons and gimmicky features often driving the designer to distraction.

Mugi Yamamoto shows us what happens when a designer designs the design tool. Upon his graduation from Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, he released his diploma project — the Stack printer. A device that sits upon a stack of A4 paper, feeds from below and delivers up top, slowly building a new stack. It works its way down the stack like so, turning each blank piece into a printout, with no feeding tray, and no crumpled paper when it feeds to many pages. “Thanks to this new way of printing, it is possible to remove the paper tray, the bulkiest element in common printers,” describes Yamamoto, “This concept allows a very light appearance and avoids frequent reloading.”

It has one function so it is small and simple. It does that one function well. It is all that is should be — including looking pretty slick on your desk.

mugiyamamoto.com