By Rain Noe - Mar 20

Free App Lets You Create and Control Your Own LED Display Designs

Artist/engineer Christopher Schardt's LED Lab, as demonstrated with his "Spokes"

Upon walking into Pier 48 for the World's Fair Nano in San Francisco, the first thing you see are these dual spinning wheels: Called "Spokes," the mesmerizing display was created by artist and engineer Christopher Schardt, a longtime Burning Man contributor who has been creating sculptures since 2000. Schardt

By Rain Noe - Mar 08

How to Build Your Own LED Softbox for Product Photography and Video

Don't buy, DIY

Whether you're taking stills or shooting video, in order to get that "liquid light" effect on a smooth surface you need a diffused light source. You could run out and drop several hundred dollars or more on an LED softbox, but here industrial designer Eric Strebel shows you how he

By Rain Noe - Feb 07

This Paint Can Store and Give Off Light for 12 Hours!

What are your ideas for practical applications?

Remember Stuart Semple? He's the British artist who started making and selling that ultra-black paint after artist Anish Kapoor tried to have it all to himself. Now Semple has created that paint's opposite: LIT, which is made out of "the most powerful light emitting pigment on the planet." This stuff

By Rain Noe - Jan 30

Hilarious Live-Action Re-enactment of Pixar's Opening Credit Scene

Plus the actual design history of the Angelpoise Lamp

Here's a chap named Nils Solana doing his best to recreate Pixar's famous pre-credit scene: "I thank all the people who have made the success of this intro possible," Solana writes (translated from his native Catalan). "Anyone who needs a good intro, contact me." And just so you come away

By Rain Noe - Dec 12, 2017

How Fast Can a Christmas Tree Catch on Fire?

Yule be sorry

Each year about 200 families in America will experience Christmas tree fires, proving to their children that Santa Claus does not love them. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the culprits are usually faulty or overloaded lighting and/or placing the tree too close to a heat source. But

By Rain Noe - Nov 30, 2017

A Lamp That Detects and Mimics Ambient Color in Real Time

Ideas for applications please? Because mine is damned dumb

Connected device maker Digital Habits, who previously won a Core77 Design Award for their Open Mirror, have created another device that's caught our eye: The Ambient Light Color Swing. This pendant lamp contains a sensor that allows it to detect the color of nearby objects, then changes its own light

By Rain Noe - Nov 29, 2017

PAL is a Nifty, Modular, Mobile, Portable Lighting System

For all of its sins, the smartphone has done a lot to reduce object clutter; I no longer have to carry a separate music player, digital camera and cell phone as I once did. Could a similar feat be achieved with a light source? The folks at Texas-based Thirty Third

By Rain Noe - Nov 16, 2017

The Luminoodle: Flexible, Portable LED Task Lighting

Now that technology has freed us from the lightbulb fixture, designers are continuing to exploit the new form factors made possible by LEDs. Power Practical's Luminoodle Task design is not only powerful, but portable, lightweight and flexible, which opens up a whole new world of lighting possibilities: I'm digging

By Rain Noe - Sep 26, 2017

Researchers Find Evolutionary Explanation for Why You Can't Fall Asleep While Everyone Else is Snoozing

…and it's got nothing to do with light bulbs, Netflix or iPads

Is there anything worse than being wide awake when everyone else is asleep, and you know you have to be at work the next day? When no matter how hard you try, you just can't fall asleep? The conventional wisdom is that artificial light, and now our tablets and devices,

By Rain Noe - Aug 28, 2017

Ingo Maurer's Inflatable LED Lighting Fixtures

The Blow Me Up is safer, lighter, easier to ship and uses less materials

This is a brilliant use of materials, and a clear design improvement over its predecessor. Lighting designers Ingo Maurer and Theo Möller have designed the Blow Me Up, an inflatable lighting fixture: BLOW Me Up Installation from Ingo Maurer on Vimeo. I currently have standard fluorescent lighting fixtures as

By Fictiv Inc. - Aug 21, 2017

Learn by Example: How to Design Light Pipes

Light plays an important role in the design of many hardware products. Often, they are both decorative and functional. Indicator lights are the most minimal user interface: They tell you whether the device is turned on, low on battery, or "thinking" really hard. On modern electronics, the light's source is

By Rain Noe - Aug 18, 2017

Just What is a Tiki Torch, Anyway?

Who invented it and who are the Tiki?

By now you've probably seen this image, which was created by Funny or Die: While there's nothing funny about what happened at Charlottesville, more than a few pointed out the levity within the act of white supremacists presumably purchasing their torches at a Party City retail outpost. Tiki Brand,

By Rain Noe - Jul 31, 2017

BioLite's Cyclist Light Kit: Backup Battery Power and a Five-Way Light

…in a diminutive package

BioLite may be an American company, but their workforce would be at home in Holland: More than half of the company's employees commute to work by bicycle. Thus they've created the BioLite Cyclist Light Kit, a diminutive and handy accessory that they're now selling in a 2-pack: I'm digging that

By Emily Engle - Jul 12, 2017

BuzziPleat Ruffs Merge Acoustics and Lighting

They're also the identical twin of Queen Elizabeth I's neck piece

There's been a lot of "buzz" around BuzziSpace and 13&9's award-winning BuzziPleat, aka giant ruffs that can be used as sound dampeners, lighting, and/or decoration. They look just like this... but are way more functional. Although pretty much anything would be—unless anyone can convince me otherwise, those neck things do not seem to serve a purpose.

By Rain Noe - Jul 11, 2017

Brilliant Design: A Gravity-Powered Light

Jim Reeves and Martin Riddiford's game-changing invention requires no batteries nor electricity

Here's an example of solving an impossible problem using clever design. First off, the arena in which the problem exists: Roughly 25% of the world's population have no access to electricity. In these areas using kerosene lamps for lighting is common. The potential for fires and burns from these lamps

By Rain Noe - Jul 06, 2017

The Komorebi Lamp Provides the Illusion of Filtered and Reflected Sunlight

Leslie Nooteboom's artful design simulates nature when none can be found

A design problem many attempt to tackle: How to get sunlight into an interior space. 3M does it with materials science. Dr. Diva Tommei does it with robotics. Ross Lovegrove does it with tubes and reflectors. Product designer Leslie Nooteboom is trying it with technology. During her final year of

By Kat Bauman - Jun 13, 2017

Watch How Caged Lamps Were Made Then and Now

Hint: not that much has changed

Caged Venetian (or Murano) glass lamps are a nearly timeless inspiration in lighting design. Their mix of metal restraint and trapped organic glass can range from sensual, to exquisitely detailed, to schlocky "Italian style" restaurant decor, and back again. (I have a conspiracy theory that those bad plastic pizza restaurant

By Kat Bauman - Jun 09, 2017

Yea or Nay?: What You Get When "Package Is Lamp"

A low waste, highly idealistic light

Cardboard, like reclaimed wood, continues to provide inspiration for materials-minded designers. It's tough but soft, ubiquitous and underrated, and incredibly easy to source. Letting the material drive the object is a similarly tried and true source of both innovation and "innovation." The R16 Lamp project aims to join the shipping

By Rain Noe - Apr 26, 2017

Less is More with This Modern-Day LED Chandelier

Industrial designer Peter Bristol and Juniper bring us Thin

The form factor of chandeliers has grown ever bulkier since its first iteration. What started out as a simple overhead platform to hold candles has steadily grown more ornate, gaudier and heavier. The addition of incandescent bulbs and glass diffusers has eliminated the form-follows-function elegance of the original design. Now

By Rain Noe - Apr 26, 2017

Transcript & Sketches from a Medieval Design Session

Designing overhead lighting for the first time wasn't easy

The original medieval overhead candle holder is a brilliant piece of "form follows function." We're thrilled to announce we've uncovered original documentation, and even sketches, of a design meeting from the Middle Ages concerning the development of this object. Industrial designers Marcus Chandelier and Phil Ips worked as lighting designers

By Ray Hu - Apr 17, 2017

Milan Design Week 2017: SaloneSatellite—20 Years and Still Going Strong

The young talent section of the Salone del Mobile takes a moment to look back while offering a premier platform for the future of furniture... and food?

As far as themes go, "DESIGN is...?" might be as open-ended as they come. If the vast majority of the 650 young designers exhibiting in SaloneSatellite 2017 are any indication, design is stuff you put in your house, with few deviations from furniture and lighting at the far end of

By Kat Bauman - Apr 12, 2017

Spotted on Coroflot: The Heavenly 'Halo' Lamp

This transcendent little light recently caught my eye over on Coroflot, where it's adding some shine to Quentin de Coster's design portfolio. The Halo is a blown glass table lamp, created around the fluorescent ring bulb at the center. The light stands 40cm high and 33cm wide, with a distinctive

By Rain Noe - Apr 11, 2017

Ron Gilad's Awesome "Dear Ingo" Task Lamp Chandelier

Gilad, please make a "Dear Ron" update

I will never tire of looking inside artists' studios. Check out visual artist Tenka Gammelgaard's Copenhagen digs: In addition to the beauty of Gammelgaard's space and work, how killer is that lamp? Designed by Ron Gilad for Dutch brand moooi in 2003, it's called the Dear Ingo. (That's a tip

By Rain Noe - Apr 04, 2017

For Sunless Apartments, a Windowshade That's Actually a Lamp

Siyu Lou's Window is a flexible, portable light source

We're always happy to see a bit of experimental and homegrown Chinese industrial design; it is only by promoting young designers that that country will be able to shed their reputation as imitators. Here's recent industrial design grad Siyu Lou's Window portable lamp: Intended as a bedside or reading lamp,

By Kat Bauman - Mar 30, 2017

Is IKEA's Disembodied Dimmer A More Romantic Take On Smart Bulbs?

Keep your eyes out for TRÅDFRI... and its teeny remote

IKEA is finally pushing seriously into smarter home territory with the TRÅDFRI system, a series of LED lights finally coming to global stores by the end of March. The networked lighting is built around a small series of bulbs and furniture panels, a network connection hub/gateway powered by Ethernet, and

By Kat Bauman - Mar 23, 2017

Shockingly Sleek Indoor Garden... Furniture?

Or lighting? Or sculpture? I don't know, but I want it

Despite grumpily noting the few options for nice indoor plant lighting the other day, and the few safe plant-incorporating lights before that, I'm grateful that Goula / Figura escaped my attention until now because no one else would have stood a chance. The Barcelona-based duo recently unveiled their Viride series

By Rain Noe - Mar 22, 2017

BioLite's Collapsible Fabric Lantern & Other NanoGrid Products

Bringing a self-sufficient lighting ecosystem to the great outdoors

You know those globe-like paper lanterns that you can get for a couple of bucks at your local Chinatown? Those are great for providing soft, ambient lighting and I've got several in my apartment. They're also terribly fragile, of course, and are only meant to live indoors.

By Rain Noe - Mar 06, 2017

3M's Daylight Redirecting Film Increases Natural Illumination While Preventing Glare

All you have to do is stick it onto a window

Sunlight is a precious commodity for office-dwellers, but it's also a double-edged sword. That warming, Vitamin-D-providing light makes you feel alive and illuminates your desk, and yet we have to block it off to prevent blinding monitor glare. 3M has invented a clever way around this. Their Daylight Redirecting