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London-based designer Stephen Johnson scoured antique shops in England for the odds and ends that comprise Wonderland, his playful candleholders. Miniature hotdogs, barrels, birds and animal figurines are stacked off-kilter, one on top of the other to make up the candlestick portion, while a base made out of a horse, a rabbit, a lady-in-waiting or a hummingbird fluttering atop a tree branch anchors the whole menagerie.
Wonderland, as in Alice and Wonderland, is made from 100% recycled aluminum and is available in matte white as well as special editions of chrome and gold. At NYIGF this year Artecnica debuted the fantastical table topper in matte red. While I think all modern furniture lovers will agree that the rigors of austerity are key, no house is quite a home if you don’t let loose just a little, and Johnson’s candleholders are just the antidote to an otherwise stark and spare dining room.
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It was easy to miss the small DMY satellite show where Veronika Wildgruber‘s craft-focused products were on display earlier this summer, though I wish I hadn’t. The attention she pays to every aspect of the design process, from concept to execution, is clear even just by looking through her website. Because she has a knack for making hard wood appear soft, the Berlin-based designer describes her work as “simple and surprising.”
The best example of this is Soft Wood, a limited edition collection of chairs that, at first glance, appear to have upholstered seats and backrests but are actually made from wood. Her Wood Bulbs series has a similar soft look, with rounded edges that mimic the form of a traditional bulb, though these are fitted with LEDs. Little Creatures, her latest collection is a modular storage unit that can be stacked one on top of the other for a tower of handmade wooden cubicles, or used alone on the ground, where “they look like little living creatures who conquered our spaces. A bit familiar, a bit strange.”
See the rest of Wildgruber’s work, like her clever Hand Towel, which is equal parts dishcloth and oven mitt.
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Craft System, the new lighting collection by François Chambard of UM Project, might just be the most imaginative interpretation of a lamp I’ve ever seen. When all the lamps are lined up side by side they look more like characters from a children’s story – think Wall-E’s progeny – than even the most inventive lighting on view at WantedDesign during NY Design Week. François describes the collection as one basic form with multiple variations. The most basic variation in the system, the Atum Lamp, has a Corian base in black, grey or white with a shade of either a fabric mesh or powder coated satin brass. There are two options for the light source, either an LED grid or four small incandescent light bulbs (both are operated with a built-in dimmer switch), and you can choose the table top variety or make it into a floor lamp with a wooden ash base.
But the similarities end there. The other variations François has come up with turn the basic lamp into a clever and playful lighting device with a prominent second function, like growing a plant or playing the theremin, that strange, UFO-sounding electronic rod instrument. Some other variations have a packed grid of tiny light bulbs or a brightly colored shade. The variations are only as limited as your imagination, and I know François is currently cooking up a few more ideas.
His other work has what you might call more standard applications, but whether he’s designing a small Milking Stool or an entire sound recording studio, his meticulous attention to material and craft and his unique combination of modern technology and handmade elements remains constant. See all his work and check out my visit to his Brooklyn studio.
Photos by Francis Dzikowski/Esto
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When I came across Peteris Zilbers‘ Moodbroom at ICFF this weekend, I thought the designer had cleverly repurposed unloved push brooms into a creative lighting element, and I was actually disappointed to learn that the Moodbroom is, in fact, a brand new object made from wood, plexiglass and an unknown composite material, not, as I had hoped, from recycled materials.
Zilbers’ design asks the question, “What happens when an ordinary household object like a broom is re-imagined?” His answer is a lamp that “plays with function in everyday objects and engages users in a game that alters perceptions of a common item.” The lamp is controlled by a remote that allows you to change the light to any color of the rainbow, or you can set it to rotate through the spectrum.
You can’t tell from the pictures, but the ‘brush’ part of the broom is incredibly heavy – so heavy that I couldn’t even lift it. Yes, I have weak arms, but I shouldn’t have to be a body builder to lift a lamp. Besides, even if you don’t have a problem with the Moodbroom’s weight and materials, what about that cord? In such a simple design the cord seems like a blaring distraction and a huge flaw. Overall, repurposing the traditional broom shape into a light doesn’t strike me as a real stretch of the imagination, and the finished project has too many unconsidered elements to justify its hefty price tag ($500+).
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Industrial designers Irina Kozlovskaya and Aaron Tsui founded Vim & Vigor Design in 2009 after graduating from RISD. For a young studio their work is pretty advanced, especially where materials are concerned. They made the Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet and all its accompanying gadgetry, like the silicone reading light, stylus, stand and collection of covers. But for all their high-tech design work, they’ve grown nostalgic for the “countless hours” they spent in RISD’s metal shop, so they decided to create a product that pays “homage to the vanishing art of hand-spinning metal.”
Metal spinning is a bit like using a pottery wheel. Each cup or bowl starts from a spinning piece of metal that’s shaped with a lathe. The technique is age-old, but Kozlovskaya and Tsui had a chance to visit a metal shop during college and witness the process firsthand. In their latest product, the SF (Spin and Fold) Lamp, they incorporated the craft of metal spinning into a flat piece of metal that’s spun into one of three patterns – obtuse, acute or intermediate – but to keep the lamp mass produceable the handmade aspect ends there. Once the flat metal piece is painted in either silver/white or black/bronze, it’s folded along a perforated line and then shaped according to size of the piece of metal it was made from, ranging from very skinny to wide.
Quotes via fastcodesign
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The CONST Lamp by Thailand-based Thinkk Studio first struck me with its odd mix of materials and shapes. An octagonal base is anchored only by the weight of a hunk of marble with a stepped-out, ridged design for holding pens and pencils. I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I like that it incorporates elements of play – not just the call back to handmade wooden toys but the motion of adjusting the lamp feels a bit like playtime. And now, after coming back to it every day for the past few days, I have to say it really delights me. I love that it’s technically a marble lamp that’s the complete opposite of everything else a marble lamp has ever connoted. Moreover, it’s so different from every other desk lamp I’ve seen lately. It’s not sleek. In fact, it’s clunky, and this is probably the first time – for me, anyhow – that clunky isn’t a bad thing at all.
If you’re in Milan you can see it for yourself at At Spazio Rossana Orlandi. From the designers:
“The main idea behind the desk lamp CONST are three basic components; base, body and shade. Keeping in mind these simple elements and their role, The design playfully combines expression with function. The marble base keeps the octagon-shaped wood body balanced and at the same time, one can adjust the angle of the shade by rotating it. Reminiscent of playing with block toys, CONST gives one the ability to have fun with functionality.”
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Stockholm-based studio Claesson Koivisto Rune have an impressive showing at Milan Design Week, with over twenty projects being exhibited at thirteen different booths, but out of all their impressive work that includes furniture as well as architecture, I like Ray, the LED pendant lights made for the Dutch retailer NgispeN.
Named after the rays of a sun in a child’s drawing, the shade is laser-cut from thin metal that can be bent or adjusted into a variety of angles. Clustered tightly together, the light will focus strongly on one point, but open up the rays and you get a softer effect. The lights look great clustered together in one color as well as in multiple shades (I smell a restaurant interior…) or alone. Even though this takes its inspiration from children’s drawings, I could really use something bright and cheerful in my grown up apartment. Let’s hope NgispeN makes them available to the public soon.
You can see the light at NgispeN’s booth as well as the Temporary Museum for New Design in Superstudio Piu. [ claesson koivisto rune ]
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With Stockholm Design Week just behind us and ICFF up ahead, we’ve seen some exciting new ideas in lighting design. Here are some of the best (and worst).
Kristin Five Melvaer
Reminiscent of glowing candles, Melvaer’s Sunday lamps set the perfect mood for waking up, going to sleep or relaxing on, say, a Sunday afternoon.
I also love Ray, which feels more like a sketch for a finished lamp. Due to its “unusual appearance and large size,” says Melvaer, Ray lamps are more like “functional sculptures.”
Pablo Figuera
This Barcelona-based designer also creates sets and graphics, but it’s his Folio lamp I like best. The perfect modern desk lamp, Folio can be easily adjusted to various heights. I also appreciate that the cord is in a bright color, making it part of the design instead of a necessary evil.
Luca Nichetto
Another Stockholm debut, the Vader lamp may have been a crowd favorite but it’s way too bubbly, plasticky, early iMac for me.
Monocomplex
This Japanese studio’s Scene #01 lamp is just too much lamp for me. There are branches, some kind of moon shape and a base that feels like an afterthought. This is also a case where a contrasting cord doesn’t work. I don’t even think Monocomplex knows what it really is. They call it “an illumination lamp…a skinny branch is reaching over a window. suddenly the moon emerges making a picture within frame that is called window completed. The branch is fixed, and moves as time goes. through this, the plane view on the window represents ‘momentary instant’ within three dimensions.”
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