If you enjoy journaling, making stickers, documenting memories with photos, or doing little DIY projects, you’ve probably had moments like this:
You see a photo on your phone that you really love.
Or you’ve just finished drawing something on your tablet.
And suddenly, you want to:
“Make it real.”
Not just post it on social media.
Not just leave it in your camera roll.
But actually print it—put it in your journal, turn it into a sticker, or place it on your desk.
It sounds simple.
But once you actually try to do it, it often turns out to be more complicated than expected.
Creativity is simple. The tools often aren’t.
Let’s say you want to make a sticker of your own today.
You might need to:
- Prepare the image
- Resize it
- Open printing software
- Arrange it on a sheet
- Print it with a printer
- Then feed the sheet into a separate cutting machine
- Re-align the page
- Set up the cut line
- Adjust the blade pressure
- And finally start cutting
If anything is misaligned, you may have to start over.
For people familiar with these tools, none of these steps is especially difficult.
But that’s the thing:
Creating itself isn’t actually that complicated.
At the beginning, you simply wanted to turn an image you liked into a sticker.
Yet somewhere along the way, there are suddenly multiple machines, different software, settings, and steps.
We kept wondering:
Could we make fewer things happen in between?
Printers are great—but they usually only print
Traditional printers are highly mature tools. They can print:
- Documents
- Photos
- Illustrations
- Labels
- Paper in many different sizes
But their job usually ends once the printing is done.
If you want to turn a printed design into an actual individual sticker, you still have to cut it out yourself.
That is easy enough for a square or a circle.
But if it’s a cat, a flower, a character, or a cup of coffee, it becomes much more time-consuming.
That’s why many creators end up buying a cutting machine as well.
Cutting machines are great—but they need another printer
Cutting machines like Cricut have given individual creators incredibly powerful making capabilities.
You can cut:
- Stickers
- Cardstock
- Vinyl
- Heat-transfer materials
- All kinds of intricate shapes
But if your design needs to be printed in color, you will usually still need a separate printer.
Before long, your desk becomes home to:
- A printer
- A cutting machine
- Lots of cables
- Lots of paper
- Different software
- And less and less desk space
For professional creators, this setup can be incredibly powerful.
But for someone who simply thinks, “Maybe I’ll make a few stickers today,” it can feel a little too heavy.
Photo printers are simple—but more limited in what they can make
There is another type of device we’ve always loved: compact photo printers.
Their biggest advantage is simple:
They’re easy.
Choose a photo.
Tap print.
A moment later, a real photo comes out of the machine.
The process feels natural and requires almost no learning.
But photo printers are generally better suited for:
- Photos
- Fixed-size cards
- Content in preset formats
If one day you want to print something other than a single photo—such as:
- Five cats in different sizes
- A row of tiny icons
- A die-cut illustration
- A sheet of journaling elements
—they may no longer be the best fit.
So we began asking: could these experiences come together?
That was one of the earliest ideas behind Kamomo.
We wanted the color of a traditional printer.
We wanted the shape freedom of a cutting machine.
And we wanted the simplicity of a photo printer.
But we didn’t want to simply shrink three machines and squeeze them into one box.
What really matters is whether the entire process can feel more natural.
The experience we imagined was always simple:
You see an image you like.
You select it.
You print it.
The machine knows where it is.
Then it cuts it out.
And in the end, what you hold is:
Something real that you can actually use.
Not a half-finished piece that still needs more work.
Why does it have to be small?
Because creativity shouldn’t require a dedicated workbench.
For many people, the place where they journal or make things might simply be:
- A table in the bedroom
- A dorm room
- A corner of a desk
- A small table in the living room
- Or even the same spot where they keep their laptop every day
We don’t want you to have to reorganize an entire room just to make a few stickers.
That’s why we cared about the size of the machine from the very beginning.
It should be able to sit:
- Next to your books
- Beside your pen holder
- Near your computer
- Or simply stay on your desk naturally when you’re not using it
Rather than making you think:
“I want to do a craft project today, so I need to take the machine out first.”
We want it to feel like an everyday tool.
Like a pen, a journal, or a small camera.
When you want to use it, it’s already there.
Small doesn’t mean it can only do small things
When people hear “small machine,” they may think of:
- Fewer features
- A toy
- Something that can only make fixed, limited content
But we want the opposite.
The machine should be small.
But the creative possibilities should be as open as possible.
You can use it to make:
- Stickers
- Photos
- Journaling materials
- Labels
- Temporary tattoos
- Transfer designs
- Small paper crafts
- And perhaps things we haven’t even imagined yet
To us, the most interesting products shouldn’t only tell people:
“You can use this for these three things.”
They should let people gradually discover:
“Oh—I can make this with it too.”
We don’t want to tell creators what they should make
There is one problem that often appears with creative tools:
Eventually, everyone’s work starts to look more and more alike.
The same templates.
The same assets.
The same layouts.
The same ways of using them.
But we believe the most interesting part of creativity is exactly this:
Everyone likes different things.
Some people love muted, understated journal pages.
Some love bright, colorful anime stickers.
Some just want to turn their cat into a hundred different stickers.
Some enjoy printing photos while they travel.
Others make their own packaging, cards, and gifts.
So we want the machine to be just a tool.
The person who decides what the final creation looks like should still be you.
Why we care more and more about removing one step
Since building products, we’ve noticed something interesting.
People don’t always give up because one particular step is especially difficult.
They give up because there are simply too many steps.
Open one app.
Export a file.
Open another app.
Adjust some settings.
Reposition the paper.
None of these things is hard on its own.
But together, they slowly wear away that initial feeling of:
“I really want to make this right now.”
Creative impulses are often brief.
You’ve just taken a photo you love.
You’ve just finished a drawing.
You’ve just come across a fun idea.
The best tools should shorten the distance between:
“I thought of it”
and
“It’s actually in my hands.”
That is something we care deeply about when designing many of Kamomo’s features.
We want the machine to fade into the background
It may sound a little strange.
We’re building a machine.
But when people use it, we don’t want them to constantly feel like they are “operating a machine.”
If every use makes you think:
What paper size do I need?
Is the device connected?
Where is the print area?
How do I set the cut line?
Where is the cutting origin?
Then the machine itself is taking up too much of your attention.
Ideally, you should be thinking more about:
Should I print this photo?
Would this cat look funny as a sticker?
What is this journal page still missing?
Rather than:
What setting does the machine need next?
To us, that may be the biggest difference between a creative tool and an industrial device.
We also know that one small machine cannot solve every problem
We don’t believe everyone needs Kamomo.
If you run a large sticker shop and need to produce hundreds or thousands of stickers every day, larger professional equipment is obviously a better fit.
If you need to cut very large pieces of vinyl, a small desktop machine will not be the right answer either.
And if you only need to print an occasional A4 document, a regular printer already works very well.
The people we really want to serve are a different group:
People who enjoy making little things.
Who like photos.
Who like stickers.
Who like drawing.
Who like journaling.
Who like preserving small moments from everyday life.
They may not be professional designers.
They may not have a craft studio.
They simply often have one thought:
“It would be nice if I could make this real.”
We want to build a machine for them.