Tag Archives: lamp

Hourglass-like Lamp Changes Lighting When You Flip It Upside Down

Posted on by

Most table lamps quietly disappear into the background, doing their job without much thought. There is the usual formula: a base, a stem, a shade, and how they become part of the furniture, you stop noticing. JAL from Barcelona studio Som by Mos leans into that ordinariness on purpose, then uses a very small twist to make the everyday feel a bit more deliberate and less forgettable.

JAL is a table lamp built around two glass cones joined tip to tip, like a clear hourglass. The bulb sits inside this double cone so it appears to float in the air, and the whole piece is available in transparent or frosted glass. The only other visible element is the cable, which comes in different colors and quietly sets the tone.

Designer: SOM by MOS

Placing JAL with the bulb facing upward on a sideboard, it behaves like a familiar table lamp, throwing light onto the wall and ceiling. Flip it so the bulb points downward, and it turns into more of a glowing object that pools light on the surface below. That simple rotation changes how you use the lamp, from reading companion to ambient accent.

The clear-glass version makes the bulb and its reflections the main event, better suited to a living room corner or a shelf where you want a bit of sparkle. The frosted version softens everything, turning the hourglass into a diffuse glow that feels more at home on a bedside table or a quiet desk. The form stays the same, but the way it holds light shifts with the finish.

Som by Mos offers a selection of cable colors, so the one strong line cutting through the glass can either disappear or become a graphic detail. A neutral cable lets the lamp fade into a minimal setup, while a bolder color makes it feel more playful. Those small decisions, orientation, glass type, cable, are how the lamp becomes “whatever you want it to be.”

Som by Mos talks about objects that are not just used but experienced and interpreted. JAL fits that idea because it does not force a single reading. It is a lamp you can turn, soften, or sharpen with tiny choices, and over time, those choices are what give it personality. Loud lighting fills rooms with fixtures demanding attention, but a quiet hourglass of glass and light can feel like exactly the right kind of “just another lamp.”

The post Hourglass-like Lamp Changes Lighting When You Flip It Upside Down first appeared on Yanko Design.

These Steel Chairs and Lamps Look Like Sitting Inside a Pergola

Posted on by

Walking under a pergola or slatted canopy, sunlight breaks into stripes, and the structure feels more like a drawing in space than a solid roof. That rhythm of beams and shadows is both architectural and strangely calming, turning overhead shelter into something closer to a pattern you move through. Foln takes that outdoor language and shrinks it down into objects you can live with indoors.

Jiyun Lee’s Foln series is a family of three stainless-steel pieces: the Linear Chair, a floor lamp, and a wall lamp, all built from folded metal lines. Each element is made entirely of stainless steel, with dimensions that keep it slender and vertical. The project is less about adding another chair or lamp to the world and more about importing a structural idea into a domestic scale, treating furniture and lighting as small frameworks you inhabit or move around.

Designer: Jiyun Lee

Encountering the Linear Chair, you see a small framework first, a set of repeated uprights and crossbars that read like a fragment of pergola. Only when you get closer does the seat reveal itself as a crossing of beams, with the back continuing the same rhythm upward. It is clearly functional, but it also feels like sitting inside a drawing, surrounded by lines and the shadows they cast on the floor and wall behind you.

The floor and wall lamps extend the same language into light. The floor lamp becomes a vertical corridor where illumination travels up and down between nested frames, while the wall lamp compresses that idea into a compact cluster that hovers off the surface. In both cases, lighting is less about a glowing bulb and more about how brightness slips between the metal and onto nearby surfaces, treating the surrounding wall as part of the composition.

Foln changes as you move around it. From one angle, the lines stack and the pieces look dense, almost solid; from another, they open up and nearly disappear. The designer’s statement that shadows become architectural elements in their own right comes through when you realize the real composition includes the dark stripes on the floor and wall as much as the polished steel itself, rewriting the room with every shift in daylight.

Stainless steel, sharp geometry, and unpadded surfaces mean Foln is not chasing ergonomic softness or maximum light output. The chair will feel firm, and the lamps will behave more like ambient or accent pieces than task lights. That trade-off is intentional, prioritizing a contemplative, spatial experience over conventional comfort and placing the series closer to collectible design than everyday contract furniture you buy in bulk.

Foln reframes interiors as places where structure, light, and emptiness can be as present as color or texture. By borrowing the pergola’s rhythm and translating it into folded metal, the series turns a familiar outdoor gesture into a quiet indoor ritual. Rhythm is not only seen in the lines of steel but felt in the way light and shadow keep rewriting the room around them, turning simple objects into small, inhabitable frameworks that change how you read the space they sit in.

The post These Steel Chairs and Lamps Look Like Sitting Inside a Pergola first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Sliced Cylinder Lamp Turns One Cut Into Pure Design Magic

Posted on by

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a designer take a basic shape and completely reimagine it. That’s exactly what Jisu Park has done with the Corte Lamp, a lighting design that proves sometimes the boldest move is a single, decisive cut.

At first glance, the Corte Lamp looks like a straightforward cylindrical floor lamp. Clean lines, matte finish, minimalist aesthetic. But then you notice the slash, a sweeping diagonal incision that slices through the form like someone took a giant blade to it. This isn’t just a decorative flourish. That cut becomes the lamp’s defining feature, transforming a simple tube into something that feels more like a sculptural installation than a functional light source.

Designer: Jisu Park

The genius here is in the restraint. Park didn’t overcomplicate things with multiple cutouts or elaborate patterns. Instead, there’s just one bold, confident gesture that creates an elliptical opening through the cylinder. When the lamp is off, you see the architectural drama of negative space. When it’s on, that void becomes a window into warm, glowing light that spills out at unexpected angles.

What makes the Corte Lamp particularly clever is how it plays with our expectations of what a lamp should be. We’re used to light coming from the top of a floor lamp, filtered through a shade or diffuser. But this design disrupts that convention. The cut section exposes the light source in the middle of the form, creating multiple lighting effects simultaneously. You get ambient uplight from the top, focused illumination from the opening, and subtle downlight at the base.

The color palette adds another layer of appeal. While the lamp comes in practical neutrals like black, white, and beige, it’s the pastel options that really shine. That peachy coral tone, in particular, transforms the lamp into something that feels current and Instagram-ready without trying too hard. The mint green offers a retro-futuristic vibe, while the soft pink brings a gentle warmth to any space. These aren’t just lamps. They’re statement pieces that happen to provide light.

From a technical perspective, the execution looks flawless. The matte finish gives each color depth and sophistication, while the precision of that diagonal cut suggests careful engineering. The edges are clean, the proportions are balanced, and despite its dramatic gesture, the lamp maintains stability with a circular base that echoes the cylindrical form. There’s also something intriguing about how the lamp changes depending on your viewing angle. Walk around it and the elliptical opening shifts in appearance, sometimes looking like a narrow slit, other times revealing the full depth of the cut. This kinetic quality, where the object seems to transform as you move through space, adds an interactive element that static lighting typically lacks.

The Corte Lamp fits into a larger trend we’re seeing in contemporary design where the line between furniture and art continues to blur. Young designers are increasingly rejecting the idea that functional objects need to disappear into the background. Instead, they’re creating pieces that demand attention, spark conversation, and challenge our assumptions about everyday items. Park’s design also reflects a particular aesthetic moment where maximalism isn’t about adding more, but about making more impact with less. One cut. One form. Multiple colors. That’s the entire concept, and it works because it’s executed with conviction and technical skill.

For anyone furnishing a space, the Corte Lamp offers versatility that’s hard to find in statement lighting. It’s bold enough to anchor a minimal room with dramatic flair, but simple enough not to clash with existing decor. It works in a modern apartment, a creative studio, or even a retail space looking for sculptural accents that serve a purpose.

The beauty of designs like this is they remind us that innovation doesn’t always mean reinventing everything from scratch. Sometimes it’s about looking at something familiar, like a cylindrical lamp, and asking what happens if you just take something away. In Park’s case, that subtraction became an addition, creating a lighting design that’s as much about shadow and void as it is about illumination. The Corte Lamp proves that great design can be a single idea executed perfectly.

The post This Sliced Cylinder Lamp Turns One Cut Into Pure Design Magic first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Sliced Cylinder Lamp Turns One Cut Into Pure Design Magic

Posted on by

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching a designer take a basic shape and completely reimagine it. That’s exactly what Jisu Park has done with the Corte Lamp, a lighting design that proves sometimes the boldest move is a single, decisive cut.

At first glance, the Corte Lamp looks like a straightforward cylindrical floor lamp. Clean lines, matte finish, minimalist aesthetic. But then you notice the slash, a sweeping diagonal incision that slices through the form like someone took a giant blade to it. This isn’t just a decorative flourish. That cut becomes the lamp’s defining feature, transforming a simple tube into something that feels more like a sculptural installation than a functional light source.

Designer: Jisu Park

The genius here is in the restraint. Park didn’t overcomplicate things with multiple cutouts or elaborate patterns. Instead, there’s just one bold, confident gesture that creates an elliptical opening through the cylinder. When the lamp is off, you see the architectural drama of negative space. When it’s on, that void becomes a window into warm, glowing light that spills out at unexpected angles.

What makes the Corte Lamp particularly clever is how it plays with our expectations of what a lamp should be. We’re used to light coming from the top of a floor lamp, filtered through a shade or diffuser. But this design disrupts that convention. The cut section exposes the light source in the middle of the form, creating multiple lighting effects simultaneously. You get ambient uplight from the top, focused illumination from the opening, and subtle downlight at the base.

The color palette adds another layer of appeal. While the lamp comes in practical neutrals like black, white, and beige, it’s the pastel options that really shine. That peachy coral tone, in particular, transforms the lamp into something that feels current and Instagram-ready without trying too hard. The mint green offers a retro-futuristic vibe, while the soft pink brings a gentle warmth to any space. These aren’t just lamps. They’re statement pieces that happen to provide light.

From a technical perspective, the execution looks flawless. The matte finish gives each color depth and sophistication, while the precision of that diagonal cut suggests careful engineering. The edges are clean, the proportions are balanced, and despite its dramatic gesture, the lamp maintains stability with a circular base that echoes the cylindrical form. There’s also something intriguing about how the lamp changes depending on your viewing angle. Walk around it and the elliptical opening shifts in appearance, sometimes looking like a narrow slit, other times revealing the full depth of the cut. This kinetic quality, where the object seems to transform as you move through space, adds an interactive element that static lighting typically lacks.

The Corte Lamp fits into a larger trend we’re seeing in contemporary design where the line between furniture and art continues to blur. Young designers are increasingly rejecting the idea that functional objects need to disappear into the background. Instead, they’re creating pieces that demand attention, spark conversation, and challenge our assumptions about everyday items. Park’s design also reflects a particular aesthetic moment where maximalism isn’t about adding more, but about making more impact with less. One cut. One form. Multiple colors. That’s the entire concept, and it works because it’s executed with conviction and technical skill.

For anyone furnishing a space, the Corte Lamp offers versatility that’s hard to find in statement lighting. It’s bold enough to anchor a minimal room with dramatic flair, but simple enough not to clash with existing decor. It works in a modern apartment, a creative studio, or even a retail space looking for sculptural accents that serve a purpose.

The beauty of designs like this is they remind us that innovation doesn’t always mean reinventing everything from scratch. Sometimes it’s about looking at something familiar, like a cylindrical lamp, and asking what happens if you just take something away. In Park’s case, that subtraction became an addition, creating a lighting design that’s as much about shadow and void as it is about illumination. The Corte Lamp proves that great design can be a single idea executed perfectly.

The post This Sliced Cylinder Lamp Turns One Cut Into Pure Design Magic first appeared on Yanko Design.

When Your Childhood Pen Becomes Your Living Room Centerpiece

Posted on by

You know that clear plastic pen you’ve chewed the cap off a hundred times? The one that’s probably rolling around in your junk drawer right now? Well, someone just turned it into a lamp and it’s kind of genius. Seeing design variations of products that are different from each other is a refreshing take especially if it’s done right.

Italian design brand Seletti teamed up with designer Mario Paroli to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the BIC Cristal pen in the most extra way possible. They blew it up to 12 times its original size and transformed it into a floor lamp, pendant light, and wall-mounted fixture. Because apparently, nothing says “happy birthday” quite like making something absurdly large and hanging it from your ceiling.

Designer: Mario Paroli for Seletti

The BIC Lamp debuted at Maison & Objet 2026, and it’s exactly what you’d imagine if you scaled up that iconic ballpoint pen you’ve been using since elementary school. The transparent barrel is there, the hexagonal body is there, and yes, the caps come in those three classic colors: black, blue, and red. The only thing missing is the mysterious teeth marks we all somehow ended up making during boring classes or meetings.

What makes this collaboration so charming is how it taps into universal nostalgia. The BIC Cristal isn’t just any pen. Since 1950, when French-Italian entrepreneur Marcel Bich acquired the patent for the ballpoint mechanism from Hungarian-Argentine inventor László Bíró, this little writing tool has lived in every pencil case, backpack, and desk drawer imaginable. It’s been clutched by artists and writers, and it’s earned spots in the permanent collections at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou. For something so ordinary, it’s surprisingly extraordinary.

Seletti’s art director Stefano Seletti explains their approach perfectly: “We transform a universally and instantly recognisable shape that lives in everyone’s memory, into something completely new”. And that’s the magic here. The lamp doesn’t reinvent the wheel or try too hard to be clever. It just takes something we all recognize and makes us see it differently. The design uses carefully selected materials that echo the original pen, but instead of ink flowing through that clear barrel, you get LED technology lighting up your space. It’s functional, playful, and surprisingly versatile. Whether you mount it on a wall, suspend it as a pendant, or place it as a floor lamp, the BIC Lamp brings that same pop-culture irreverence Seletti is known for.

The lamp works because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s design with a wink, a nod to our shared experiences with this humble writing instrument. How many times have we frantically searched for a pen, only to find three BIC Cristals that may or may not work? How many have we borrowed and never returned? The pen is part of our daily rituals, so familiar we barely notice it anymore. By supersizing it and giving it a new function, Paroli and Seletti invite us to reconsider everyday objects around us. Good design doesn’t always mean creating something entirely new. Sometimes it means looking at what’s already there and asking, “What if?” What if the pen we’ve used for decades became something else? What if we celebrated its simplicity by making it impossible to ignore?

The BIC Lamp transforms a desktop essential into a domestic icon, proving that the best design ideas often come from the most unexpected places. It’s memory-driven design at its finest, taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary simply by changing its scale and purpose.

The post When Your Childhood Pen Becomes Your Living Room Centerpiece first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Brick Light Turns Travel Memories Into Glowing Cubes

Posted on by

There’s something beautifully honest about a designer who stops creating long enough to actually live. That’s the story behind the Brick Light from O_1 Design, a lamp that feels less like a product and more like a memento brought back from somewhere you can’t quite place on a map.

The designer’s journey reads like a poem. Golden sunlight threading through misty fields. Frost covering endless plains. The physical memory of wind while cycling, of rough rock under climbing fingertips. These weren’t just Instagram moments to be captured and forgotten. They became something tangible, something you can hold in your hand and turn on at night.

Designer: O_1 Design

What emerged from all those collected sensations is refreshingly simple: three brick-shaped blocks stacked together, glowing softly from within. It’s the kind of design that makes you wonder why no one thought of it before, which is usually the hallmark of something genuinely clever. The inspiration comes from architecture’s most fundamental building block. Not the sexy, swooping curves of modern design, but the humble brick. The kind of thing that’s built everything from ancient walls to corner shops you pass without noticing. There’s a democratic quality to that choice, a nod to the idea that extraordinary things can come from ordinary elements.

Each segment maintains perfect 1:1:1 proportions, creating a symmetry that feels almost meditative. The surface carries a subtle brick pattern, textured enough to catch your eye but not so literal that it becomes gimmicky. When the light filters through the flame-retardant PC material, it transforms into something between solid and ethereal, like a memory that’s both crystal clear and slightly hazy around the edges.

But here’s where things get interesting. This isn’t a lamp you just turn on and off with a boring switch. The Brick Light wants to play with you. Rotate it 90 degrees and you’re setting a sleep timer with options for 10, 25, 45, or 60 minutes. Flip it completely upside down and it begins a gentle fade to darkness, easing you into sleep like a bedtime story that knows exactly when to end. It’s this kind of thoughtful interaction design that separates memorable products from forgettable ones. Anyone can make a lamp. Making a lamp that invites touch, that rewards curiosity, that feels almost alive in its responsiveness? That takes actual imagination.

The technical details matter here too. This isn’t just about aesthetics. The patented internal structure uses a support and suspension system that allows the modular design to work as both form and function. The material choice prioritizes safety with flame-retardant certification, because beautiful things should also be responsible things.

What strikes me most about the Brick Light is how it manages to feel both playful and contemplative. The promotional photos tell this story perfectly. Tiny figurines interact with oversized glowing cubes in miniature worlds ranging from arctic landscapes to desert sunsets to lush green countryside. It’s whimsical without being childish, fantastical while remaining grounded in real materials and honest construction.

In a market saturated with smart home devices that require apps and WiFi and monthly subscriptions, there’s something genuinely refreshing about a light that just asks you to flip it. The analog nature of the interaction feels almost radical in 2026. No voice commands, no connectivity issues, no firmware updates. Just you, the lamp, and the simple pleasure of physical manipulation creating immediate response.

This is design that understands we’re all a little tired of being optimized and connected and notified. Sometimes you just want to hold something real, turn it in your hands, and watch what happens. The Brick Light offers that uncomplicated satisfaction while still delivering genuine innovation in how we interact with everyday objects. Whether it ends up on a nightstand helping you drift off to sleep or on a desk providing ambient lighting while you work, the Brick Light carries with it that original inspiration: the fragments of a journey, the rhythm of experience, quietly glowing.

The post This Brick Light Turns Travel Memories Into Glowing Cubes first appeared on Yanko Design.

Bird.zzz Turns Sleep Tracking into a Calm Earbud and Bedside Lamp Ritual

Posted on by

Most sleep gadgets feel like they belong in a gym or a lab: chunky watches, bright screens, and apps that want you to stare at charts before bed. There is a disconnect between wanting a soft, quiet bedroom and plugging in devices that blink, buzz, and look like mini computers parked on your nightstand. Sleep tech rarely starts from the mood of the room it lives in, focusing instead on metrics and dashboards that feel clinical.

Bird.zzz is a project from Jiyoun Kim Studio and LG Labs that begins with a softly lit, cozy bedroom. It is a sleep wellness earbud paired with a dome-shaped bedside cradle that doubles as a knock-on lamp. The earbuds measure sleep via EEG and physical data, then use that analysis to deliver sound designed to improve sleep quality, all while sitting on your nightstand like a small sculpture rather than a charging puck.

Designer: Jiyoun Kim

The design started from the cradle, imagined as a small object on a nightstand rather than a tech dock. It works as a bedside lamp using LG’s knock-on technology; a tap on the cover turns a warm, indirect LED halo on or off. The magnet-fixed top lifts to reveal the earbuds, and the weight is tuned so it feels stable and reassuring when you reach for it half-awake in the dark.

The earbuds had a specific challenge, needing skin contact for EEG sensing while staying loose enough for comfortable sleep. The team explored numerous forms and landed on a novel S-shaped ear tip, a hybrid of open and closed designs that keeps sensors in place without pressing hard into the ear canal. It borrows benefits from both types while avoiding the pressure points that make most in-ear devices unbearable after 20 minutes.

A typical evening means placing the earbuds in the cradle, tapping the dome to turn on a soft light, then lifting the lid to put the earbuds in as you settle into bed. As you fall asleep, the system reads brain activity and physical signals, adjusting soundscapes or audio cues based on your patterns. In the morning, the earbuds go back into their dome, and the object returns to being a quiet lamp.

The project covered product, packaging, and manual design, so the experience runs from unboxing to nightly use with consistent, minimal language. The warm white LED, indirect lighting, and knock-on interaction follow calm technology principles, asking for as little attention as possible. Bird.zzz launched after CES 2023, but it looks more like a small piece of bedroom architecture than a trade show gadget you plug in reluctantly.

Bird.zzz treats sleep as an environment to design for, not just a graph to optimize. The dome cradle, the S-shaped ear tip, and the soft interactions all point toward tech that respects the bedroom as a place to wind down. For anyone wary of strapping more screens to their body at night, an earbud and lamp combo that tries to disappear into the ritual of going to bed feels like a more thoughtful direction.

The post Bird.zzz Turns Sleep Tracking into a Calm Earbud and Bedside Lamp Ritual first appeared on Yanko Design.

ILO Lamp Lets Soft Light Wander Between Rooms

Posted on by

Evenings drift from kitchen to dining table to balcony and back, while the nicest lamp stays tethered to a single socket. The small but persistent annoyance of cords, extension leads, and the feeling that lighting never quite follows where people actually end up sitting becomes background noise. Beautiful lamps are static, and that friction quietly shapes how and where you use light, even when it should not.

Arieto Studio’s ILO Lamp is a response to that pattern. The designers started by watching their own routines, noticing how often they moved while the light did not. ILO is an attempt to let light move as naturally as people do, without turning into a tech gadget or a camping lantern, treating the portable lamp as a piece of furniture that happens to be untethered when you need it.

Designer: Hanna Billqvist (Arieto Studio)

The lamp is two elements that live together, a luminous donut that holds the light and a weighted base that stays plugged in. When the donut rests on the base, it behaves like a sculptural table lamp. When lifted, it becomes a compact, cordless light that can travel to the terrace, coffee table, or hallway without trailing cables behind it or requiring a new outlet.

The base is both a stand and an induction charger. When the donut is dropped back onto it, charging starts automatically, no ports or cables to find in the dark. This turns recharging into a background ritual, the same motion you would make when tidying a table at the end of the night, and the lamp is ready again by morning without thinking about it.

The soft, diffused glow from the ring throws gentle light across a table rather than a harsh spotlight. It is meant for calm, ambient illumination, the kind that makes late conversations feel unhurried and lets food or books sit in a pool of warm light without glare. The donut radiates evenly in all directions, so it never casts hard shadows or creates bright spots.

The donut on a balcony rail during a late drink, on a low shelf beside a sofa, or in a hallway where there is no convenient outlet shows how the same object moves between roles without looking like camping gear. It stays firmly in the language of interior objects, simple forms, rich colors, and a glow that feels like it belongs rather than borrowed from a utility drawer.

The contrast between the glossy, cream-colored ring and the solid, colored base makes the lamp read almost like a small sculpture when assembled. The base comes in several tones, burgundy, green, and blue, so it can either disappear into furniture or act as a quiet accent in a neutral room. The proportions are calm and grounded, not trying to impress with complexity.

ILO is less about showing off wireless charging and more about removing the tiny compromises that come with static lamps. It treats light as something that can follow dinners, conversations, and quiet moments, while still looking like a considered object when it comes home to its base. For people who move through their homes rather than settling in one spot all evening, a lamp that can keep up without cables or outlets starts to feel less like a luxury and more like how lighting should have worked all along.

The post ILO Lamp Lets Soft Light Wander Between Rooms first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEDA: The Executive Lamp Where Femininity Meets Power

Posted on by

There’s something transformative happening in the world of workspace design, and it’s about time. For decades, executive furniture and lighting have been dominated by heavy wood, leather, and angular shapes that scream “traditional power.” But what happens when you design a table lamp specifically for a female executive? You get LEDA, a piece that challenges everything we thought we knew about authority, elegance, and what belongs on a power desk.

Created by designer Sai Divakar Boddeti during his Master’s program in Industrial Design, LEDA isn’t just another lamp. It’s a sculptural conversation starter that asks an important question: why can’t femininity and power coexist in the same object? The answer, as LEDA demonstrates beautifully, is that they absolutely can.

Designer: Sai Divakar Boddeti

The design language here is fascinating. Instead of defaulting to the typical corporate aesthetic, Boddeti looked to three distinct sources that embody both strength and grace: the gaze of a woman’s eye, the graceful posture of a swan, and the luminous quality of mother of pearl. These aren’t random choices. Each element speaks to a different aspect of feminine power that often gets overlooked in professional spaces.

What really captures attention is how LEDA translates these organic inspirations into physical form. Look at the lamp and you’ll immediately notice the eye-like element integrated into its curved head, a subtle nod to focused elegance. The neck sweeps upward and curves with the exact poise of a swan mid-glide, neither timid nor aggressive, just perfectly assured. The entire form sits atop a circular base, creating a balanced silhouette that commands attention without dominating the space.

The development process visible in the concept iterations shows how Boddeti refined the swan inspiration from literal interpretation to sophisticated abstraction. The final design captures the essence without being obvious about it. It’s smart restraint that elevates the lamp from novelty to serious design object. The material choices amplify the concept. That mother-of-pearl inspired finish gives certain versions of LEDA a soft iridescent quality that shifts subtly depending on the light and viewing angle. It’s “timeless beauty with a luminous touch,” as the design philosophy states. This isn’t just description, it’s what you actually see when the lamp catches the light.

Here’s where LEDA gets even more interesting: it comes in multiple colorways inspired by Pantone Colors of the Year. We’re talking deep burgundy, sophisticated blue-grey, warm peach, and bold red. This isn’t just product variation for the sake of options. It’s recognition that feminine power looks different for different people. Some days you want the quiet confidence of grey-blue. Other days you want the unapologetic boldness of red.

The presentation matches the ambition. LEDA arrives in premium packaging with embossed branding on a suede-like brown outer box, opening to reveal the lamp nestled in a red-lined interior. This is intentional luxury positioning. The packaging communicates that this isn’t an impulse purchase from a big box store. It’s an investment piece that deserves ceremony. In workspace context, LEDA transforms the desk. That tall, slender stem gives it presence without bulk. The curved head directs light exactly where you need it, but the form itself becomes a focal point even when switched off. It’s the kind of object that makes people pause and ask questions.

The name LEDA itself adds cultural weight. In Greek mythology, Leda is associated with the swan, connecting directly to the lamp’s form language. This isn’t surface-level symbolism. It’s deliberate anchoring in storytelling tradition that gives the design depth beyond its immediate visual impact. What’s particularly refreshing about LEDA is how it rejects the false choice between functional and beautiful. The lamp illuminates your work perfectly while serving as sculpture that reflects identity. For female executives who’ve often had to navigate spaces designed with someone else in mind, having objects that reflect multidimensional identity can be quietly revolutionary.

The post LEDA: The Executive Lamp Where Femininity Meets Power first appeared on Yanko Design.

IKEA’s Viral Donut Lamp Just Got a $100 Smart Upgrade

Posted on by

Whenever I pass by IKEA, one of the things that always catches my eye are their minimalist lamps (well, a lot of their items are minimalist of course). They look simple, elegant, and something that would fit right into my space. Probably one of their most popular lamps is the VARMBLIXT donut lamp designed by renowned Dutch artist Sabine Marcelis, which is, as its name suggests, a donut-shaped lamp.

Now this lamp is seeing a 2026 upgrade with the new VARMBLIXT smart donut lamp that still keeps the popular sculptural but playful form intact but adds a smarter component. The light now radiates from the inside with its matte finish instead of the previous version where external light reflected and bounced off on its glossy surface. This shift from glossy to matte white glass fundamentally changes how you experience the lamp – instead of being a reflective object, it becomes a glowing light source that creates ambiance from within.

Designer: Sabine Marcelis for IKEA

The difference in the design, specifically the material, allows the lamp to create a different atmospheric experience. For those that love more colorful ambience lighting, you now get 12 preset colors that were personally curated by the designer herself. The colors also transition smoothly through the different hues so that there is no abrupt change to your environment. You get different temperatures of white light to glowing amber and warm red to soft pink to cool lavender and turquoise to gentle yellow tones and finally back to white light. Marcelis designed these transitions to be subtle and natural, so the shifts feel organic rather than jarring.

When you connect the lamp to the IKEA Home Smart app through DIRIGERA, you get the “full colour spectrum with more than 40 shades” to play with, giving you even more control over your lighting mood. The VARMBLIXT lamp comes with the BILRESA remote so you can start cycling through the colors without any complicated setup. But it is built on the Matter standard so you can integrate it with your smart home system including Apple Home, Siri, and other compatible platforms.

Just like the original donut lamp, you can use this smart version as a table lamp or you can also mount it on your wall if you need this to be part of your wall decor. You get flexibility on how you want this sculptural piece to be displayed in your space, whether to blend in with your aesthetic or to be the centerpiece decoration while providing ambient light. At $99.99, it hits that sweet spot of designer quality at an accessible price point.

IKEA is also launching a VARMBLIXT smart pendant lamp which focuses mostly on how white light can move from cool daylight to the yellow glow that mimics candles when it gets darker. Its design is a cluster of curved tubes made from frosted white glass that creates a sculptural presence even when turned off. When illuminated, those frosted tubes transform into a magical piece of light engineering, casting a soft, diffused glow. You can also use it with the included remote or connect it to your smart home system. The pendant is priced at $149.99.

Both lamps will be available starting in April 2026, and they represent more than just a product upgrade. They’re part of IKEA’s ongoing collaboration with Sabine Marcelis, with another collection already planned for 2027. For collectors and design enthusiasts, this makes the VARMBLIXT pieces part of an evolving story worth following.

What I love most about these smart upgrades is that IKEA didn’t sacrifice the design integrity that made these lamps iconic in the first place. They’ve simply enhanced what was already working beautifully, adding functionality that feels intuitive rather than overwhelming. Whether you’re drawn to the playful personality of the donut lamp or the refined elegance of the pendant, both pieces prove that smart lighting can be sculptural, affordable, and genuinely beautiful.

The post IKEA’s Viral Donut Lamp Just Got a $100 Smart Upgrade first appeared on Yanko Design.