Graduate designer Mugi Yamamoto has designed an inkjet printer that sits on top of a stack of paper and eats its way down through the pile (+ slideshow).

The compact Stack printer by industrial designer Mugi Yamamoto is simply placed on top of a pile of A4 paper, rather than loading paper into the device in batches. The sheets are fed through rollers underneath the machine and exit on the top.

Yamamoto told Dezeen that his intention was to reduce the space taken up by a printer. "Thanks to this new way of printing it is possible to remove the paper tray, the bulkiest element in common printers," said Yamamoto. "This concept allows a very light appearance and avoids frequent reloading."

The designer looked at commercial printers and modified existing mechanisms to create the working prototype.

The printed paper creates a new pile on top of the machine. "It's not endless - it might go up to maybe 200 sheets of paper," Yamamoto told Dezeen.

Yamamoto completed the project while studying industrial and product design at Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland. He was also selected as one of ten young designers to exhibit at this year's Design Parade 8 at Villa Hoailles in Hyeres, France.

The designer was born in Tokyo and is currently undertaking a design internship in Nürnberg, Germany.

Other interesting printers we've featured include an inkjet printer that prints patterns to contort pieces of paper into specific 3D forms and an old inkjet printer that had its ink cartridge replace with felt pens.

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Photography is by the designer.