ludwig rensch questions the appearance of printers and proposes his own

ludwig rensch questions the appearance of printers and proposes his own
(above) paper prints from an upright paper roll
all images courtesy of ludwig rensch

based on the question why printers in general can be so frustrating and why they’re able to turn every room they’re in into an office, ludwig rensch questioned the general appearance of common printers and decided to start from scratch, rethinking the whole product. ‘paper’ is part of rensch’s diploma thesis interacting with things and explores how today’s machines can be used intuitively. despite being a connected device (internet of things) it hasn’t got a screen but uses physical controls and simple light signals instead, to take advantage of the human fine motor skills.

 video courtesy of ludwig rensch 

ludwig rensch‘s ‘paper’ does also exist in the virtual space and can be operated by an app or a website. thus, it brings together the analogue and the digital world and transfers visual content from the one into the other. the result is an entirely new form. ‘paper’ is printing on an upright paper roll and therefore is compact, space-saving and mobile. rather than being a grey necessity for working environments, ‘paper’ is an aesthetically pleasing creative tool. the user interface was designed following the pareto principle, which states that 80% of the time, we only use 20% of the features. to achieve this, rensch defined a printer’s key functions, analyzed the required procedures and simplified these until the result was an easy to understand, pleasant and minimalistic product.

on the backside is a scanner

cleverly arranged physical controls make paper easy to use

simple light points informs the user about the printers progress or supply levels 

sketching to create new shapes to represent the machine’s functionalities

sketches of the interface

cardboard model at an early stage 

rough model

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: juliana neira | designboom