Patent ID: 8577274

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an image carrier on which a latent image is formed; a charging device that charges the image carrier; an exposure device that illuminates the image carrier to form the latent image on the image carrier; a developing device that develops the latent image to form a toner image on the image carrier; a transfer device that transfers the toner image onto the recording medium via an intermediate transfer body; a cleaning device that removes toner remaining on the image carrier after the toner image is transferred; and a lubricant applying device that applies a lubricant to the image carrier, wherein the lubricant applying devices includes: a solid lubricant, a lubricant supply roller that applies the lubricant to the image carrier by coming into contact with the solid lubricant and the image carrier, and a lubricant smoothing blade having a first surface, the first surface configured to come into contact with the image carrier to smooth the lubricant applied on the image carrier, the first surface and the image carrier being substantially parallel when the first surface comes into contact with the image carrier; the first surface comes into contact with the image carrier in a trailing direction, and the lubricant smoothing blade is arranged such that a distal end thereof that does not contact the image carrier is oriented toward a center of the image carrier.